The Most Incredible Thing
by Diglossia
Summary: A series of attacks on Homra Clansmen forces Eric to confront the past he's been trying to put behind him. He needs help but Fujishima's not here to help him this time- Dewa is. And Dewa's never been Eric's biggest fan.
1. Chapter 1

Fujishima hesitated as he pulled into the empty schoolyard. He checked the time on his PDA, his face taking on a worried cast. It was only a minute past the time he had arrived yesterday.

Had Eric left without him? Shizume City wasn't the safest place. In fact, most would consider it overly dangerous and even cruel. Fujishima could never gauge Eric's opinion of him but hopefully it wasn't so poor he would have gone on alone.

No, he was being foolish. School had probably just not let out yet.

ØØØ

At the touch of a hand to his shoulder, Fujishima's eyes snapped open. Flames nearly singed the person unwise enough to wake a Red Clansman before he recognized a swatch of blue out of the corner of one eye and reigned them back in. Eric.

"I'm done," Eric said with a one-shouldered shrug.

The area around the school was full of departing students. While waiting for Eric, Fujishima must have fallen asleep against the handlebars of his bike. His actual bike, because Eric didn't like his motorcycle. He thought it too noisy and riding on it made him dizzy.

He took Eric on his bike once. Much cajoling and wheedling was needed for Eric to even consider approaching the loud thing, but Fujishima got him on it in the end. The experience wasn't amazing or wonderful, or anything, mundane really, except for the part where Eric stopped trying to choke all the air out of him and relaxed. He had pressed his cheek against Fujishima's shoulder; his eyes scrunched shut and his blond hair whipping about when Fujishima looked back. For a moment, he pretended; then, he pushed that line of thinking away and enjoyed what he had, which was a very attractive blond clinging to him as they roared down the city streets.

"How was it?" Fujishima asked, pushing his bike along as they made their way to a convenience store on the west side of the city. He would have taken Eric back to the group home where he was staying- it wasn't that much farther- if Eric hadn't made it clear that he didn't want Fujishima anywhere near the place.

"Fine."

Fujishima didn't press further. If Eric didn't want to talk about his day, he wouldn't make him.

It had been difficult finding a school that was both appropriate for and tolerable to Eric. Not too many places were willing to take a taciturn teenager with no legal guardian who read at a third grade level, which, incidentally, was the last time Eric had been to school.

Honami, Anna's aunt (who for some reason couldn't take care of Anna- Kusanagi and Totsuka hedged about the specifics), had introduced them to this place. A school for Japanese as a second language, they got Eric in with lies. Kusanagi had obtained very official-looking if very false paperwork for Eric. The official story was he'd spent the past seven years at an international school in Kanagawa Prefecture that taught exclusively in English.

So far, Eric had been here three months, and he seemed to like it. He didn't really talk to Fujishima about it. Fujishima guessed that, like the group home, he was too embarrassed.

Eric didn't want pity- indeed, he wouldn't have accepted it- but he would take charity when he had no other option. He was a runaway, technically legally bound to Hikawa. If Kusanagi messed up the paperwork in any way, he would be returned to the gang. Of this, Fujishima was very certain.

Fujishima would do anything to make sure Eric wasn't forced back into captivity. He still didn't know what Eric wanted out of life, but there were basic human rights and needs that Hikawa had denied him.

Sometimes, Eric got mad at him. He would get huffy and not tell Fujishima why until he finally snapped and yelled, "I'm not some pet project for you to play around with in your spare time!" It hurt when Eric said that, mostly because of the emphasis on _pet_. Fujishima didn't want Eric to be his _pet_. He didn't really even _have_ pets. He mostly cared for strays until they got healthy and then found a secure home for them. Only the really sick ones stayed with him for a long time. But what really made the words sting was that helping Eric wasn't a completely altruistic act.

Fujishima liked Eric a lot- too much, in fact. So much that Chitose _and_ Kusanagi-san teased him about it when Eric wasn't around to hear. They were careful to keep silent when Eric was around, however, because no one knew how the blond, captivating, _traumatized_ foreigner would react if he overheard.

Like all the abused animals, Fujishima had ever cared for, Eric was at once fragile and wildly temperamental. The slightest things resulted in a variety of unpredictable emotions. But Eric was no pet. Fujishima had no intention of turning Eric into one, merely teaching him a few manners and guiding him back to who he had been before Hikawa. Because Eric was a gorgeous, melodramatic teenager with blue eyes and long, blond hair who Fujishima could barely reach but would give anything to keep trying.

An easy silence settled between them as they walked down the street. It was cool out, the beginnings of autumn turning the leaves and the air. Fujishima wondered if he should look into finding Eric longer pants. His ankles were very nice and well worth showing off, but they had to be cold.

"You hear that?" Eric asked suddenly, whirling around.

"Hear what?"

But Eric just shook his head.

He was edgy after that, looking over his shoulder every few minutes. For his part, Fujishima didn't notice anything unusual. Of course, he wasn't expecting to. He'd encountered enough abused animals to know they often jumped at nothing. Eric wasn't an animal, but Fujishima was more interested in veterinary science than human psychology and there were a lot of parallels, anyway. At least, in watching Eric, Fujishima had come to find a lot of parallels.

They hurt you at first, abused animals. They're scared; they think you're dangerous, out to hurt them. You couldn't blame them for the scratches or the bites.

Eric still carried that pocketknife. He'd used it since. Fujishima felt almost certain he wasn't going to use it now against a foe that was more memory than substance. He really didn't know with Eric, whether he was dangerous or not. He wasn't healing as fast as a stray animal would. He wasn't healing the same way, either.

Eric said it was because he was mutter, mutter, something in English. Kusanagi couldn't give Fujishima an explanation when he repeated it to him, only told Fujishima his pronunciation needed work.

So there was that.

ØØØ

Fujishima had always been good with animals, instinctively knowing how to deal with stray dogs and cats, even horses. Be calm, kind, gentle. Give them something to eat, somewhere warm and dry to sleep. Make them feel safe. Let them come out of their shells slowly.

He knew how to take care of all sorts of creatures, knew how to give them what they needed.

He had no idea how to make an animal human.

So he helped Eric however he could- a lesson in manners here, a new pair of pants there- always futilely hoping for a sign that Eric wanted to be around him, too.

Sometimes, Fujishima couldn't be around the bar. He had school, family, responsibilities. It was hard enough keeping the fact that he was a Clansman from his family. He couldn't exactly bring Eric around for Sunday dinner. Normal people didn't carry enormous knives in their pockets.

He worried when he couldn't be there. So long as Eric was quiet, Izumo would let him sit for hours without offering him anything to eat or even noticing him. Their King didn't acknowledge his Clansmen most of the time. Anna kept to herself. Dewa could be a jerk, though he was rarely around. Kamamoto would do little more than watch quietly and intervene when Yata got too heated.

Surprisingly, Fujishima didn't worry about Yata. Eric loved antagonizing Yata. Fujishima didn't know why, but each little flare-up offered a glimpse of the personality Eric had hidden somewhere. If they ever did get into a fight, Eric had that knife.

Yata had never been good at dodging knives.

ØØØ

When they reached the konbini, Fujishima hung around for a few minutes. Eric seemed to be waiting for him to leave, but Fujishima didn't want to, not that he had a good reason why. He decided he needed to do some deep soul-searching if that was the extent of his self-awareness.

"Okay, see you," he said finally, feeling acutely awkward.

After staring at him for a few seconds with an expression that might have been amusement as much as disapproval, Eric shoved his hands deep into his pockets and walked away. Fujishima tried not to feel too disappointed because, wow, apparently he didn't know what he was supposed to be disappointed about. Soul-searching was definitely in order.

With a confused expression covering his face, Fujishima mounted his bike and set off. It was getting late; he should probably start on his Parasitology paper when he got home. It was due at the end of his week, and his professor didn't offer extensions lightly. Why had he decided to wait for Eric again? He absolutely hadn't had the time.

_Eric could use someone to walk him home_, a niggling voice in his head said, nearly making Fujishima turn around. _He barely left the compound for seven years. He doesn't know how dangerous it can be._

It sounded nice, but that was a load of bull. Eric could take care of himself. More importantly, Fujishima was almost certainly _less_ capable of defending Eric than Eric was. Fujishima wasn't a cautious person or even a necessarily sensible one. He didn't carry weapons or any sort of protection other than his Aura, which he wasn't comfortable using lightly. But Fujishima had grown up in Shizume City. The soiled, poorly lit streets instilled no fear in him; he had walked them so many times. He trusted that they wouldn't turn on him for…really poorly fleshed out reasons, honestly. It wasn't like he picked fights or insulted people or had anything about himself that would cause people to particularly notice him. Animals liked him, and people looked past him. There was little for him to fear.

Accordingly, he wasn't expecting a group of four full-grown men to jump him in broad daylight when he placed his bike on the ground and followed pitiful mewling down an alleyway.


	2. Chapter 2

There was something awful about seeing people who were supposed to be stronger than you hurt. Eric knew he was fucked in the head, but he would rather be hurt a hundred times over than see Chitose lying in a hospital bed another second.

The nurses didn't notice or care they weren't normal people. They did their jobs, nudging Eric out of the way as they bustled in and out of the room. A curtain divided Chitose and the other bed.

Eric didn't know why he was there. Chitose was clearly unconscious, probably sedated. Bandages covered the left side of his head and there was blood in his red hair. Yes, Chitose was his friend and surely the moral support of other Clansmen would do him good…but he wasn't awake. In addition, Dewa was here and where Dewa was, Eric was not welcome.

He glanced at Dewa, who sat in a hard, plastic chair, bent over the bed and gripping Chitose's limp hand tightly between both of his own.

"We're not-" Dewa protested weakly, his voice rough, and Eric just didn't care. He turned away, effectively cutting Dewa off. He noticed Dewa didn't pull his hand away.

Dewa didn't like Eric. Eric cared about this about as much as he cared his hair was blond: it was an annoying and obvious fact that made his life that much harder yet one he was too diffident to do anything about.

Before he asked any questions, Eric crossed the room and pulled the dividing curtain back to see if the other occupant of the room was asleep. Stopped.

He should have known by now Homra could get a private room if it wanted one.

Fujishima had a tube down his throat, and Eric's nails were digging crescents into his palms.

ØØØ

"Fujishima and Chitose were jumped separately a few hours ago," Kamamoto explained gruffly over Yata ranting about people attacking Homra members. "No one could get ahold of you." He looked guilty, like he was responsible for Eric never carrying a phone or PDA. "Chitose's got a concussion, but the doctors say he should be fine." He didn't mention Fujishima.

"There's a message on Fujishima's PDA he didn't get to send," Totsuka said. He showed it to Eric, who took a little too long to read it. Reading was not Eric's strong suit. Funny how people who like chaining you up don't give you too many books to read.

What he finally made out was this: four, foreign, blond and brown hair. The kanji for ice.

"Chitose managed to get a picture," Dewa added, the words sounding strange and tight. He didn't hand the PDA to Eric directly but gave it to Kusanagi. Eric wanted to roll his eyes at the childishness.

"Do you know them?" Kusanagi asked.

Eric studied the picture, turning it to the side a little. Chitose hadn't gotten a clear shot, and it had the slightly grainy look of a PDA snapshot. Great gadgets, honestly, but the pictures were crap even on the expensive models.

Still, he only had to look once to recognize every person in that picture.

"You're glowing," Totsuka said quietly.

Without looking, Eric could see small flames licking at his sleeves.

"We're trying to keep a low profile," Kamamoto added, not unkindly. "We don't know the attackers won't come back and try to finish them off."

Eric grit his teeth and reigned the Aura back in.

Shocked. Eric was shocked the gang he escaped from and sicced a King with a bad attitude on was trying to get back at him. Eric, because he was a sarcastic, snarky little shit, was not the least bit surprised by this troubling information. He _was_ surprised King had left any of them alive. Everyone must not have been at base when he destroyed it.

A small feeling of hope flickered to life somewhere inside Eric and was just as quickly snuffed.

Eric was fucked in the head.

But he was getting better.

"I do," he answered in English. There was no hope the other Clansmen wouldn't be able to understand them, but at least it would be every other word and not all of them.

"Hikawa?"

Maybe not Hikawa, just the members of it. If the leadership had been destroyed, the gang would have gone with it. Despite their yakuza ties, they had always been sneaky and resilient, not organized. Kusanagi might not know or care about the difference, though.

"Yes."

"Who are they trying to hurt? Mikoto-" Kusanagi drew the syllables out- "or you?"

Eric didn't know how to answer. How was he supposed to know? He hadn't been there. He hadn't seen the attack. Did Kusanagi expect he would understand the insides of these peoples' heads just because he'd been their plaything once?

He glanced at the divider, then at Chitose.

Odd choices for someone trying to strike at the heart of Homra. Two separate attacks on the same day, hitting two relatively inoffensive people who rarely spent time together outside of the Clan. Anyone could see such attacks would put Homra's guard up, making it nigh impossible to get to other, more important members.

"I think," Eric grimaced, "me."

Kusanagi considered that. "Who else do you think they'll go after?"

"Bandou," Eric answered straightaway. Other than Chitose and Kou- Fujishima, Bandou and Shouhei were the two he was closest with. Shouhei had gone to visit friends outside the city, so he was safe. Hikawa should be smart enough to recognize they might not come out of a fight with Yata. And Homra would never let Totsuka get hurt. "Anyone else weak." He ignored Bandou spluttering in the background. It was true.

"Do you want us to get involved?" Kusanagi's final question. It was always the last thing he asked when any Clansman was in trouble. Eric paused. King might be useful; then again, he might not. He hadn't succeeded in defeating Hikawa the two times he had tried, just sent them underground.

Hikawa excelled at going underground. They had hiding spots throughout Shizume City, little places members could stay for a few days until an opposite or their boss forgot about the latest transgression. The first time Suoh Mikoto went after Hikawa, they switched bases, only returning after so many years skulking in the shadows even they forgot how ill-advised going back would be.

Eric hadn't been to but a few of these hideouts, but he had always been good at listening to other people's conversations. Even when he barely understood what was being said, he would tuck away what he overheard until it became useful. Most things didn't, but enough did that Eric kept doing it. If he tried hard enough, Eric would find their safe houses.

"No."

ØØØ

They had given him a phone. He'd never had a phone before. Falko had had to show him which buttons to press to answer a call. It was so stupid, them giving him a phone. As though they actually thought he could do it, as though it were a viable plan. He hadn't even known what to do when it started beeping.

Now Eric could look back and cynically guess they had wanted to know whether he was dead yet or if he'd be showing back up on their doorstep. He'd had four days of good food, a place to sleep, and kind people to talk to. He was on the verge of telling Fujishima he didn't want to go back- and then Ruben called.

Ruben had always been kind to Eric. Anyone in Homra would say he had been the least cruel, but Eric had been there. He remembered how hard it was to go against Boss, how much power he held. It wasn't like Homra, where Kusanagi or Totsuka or Anna could get Mikoto to do things he didn't want to do.

In a lot of ways, Fujishima reminded Eric of Ruben. Kind but not cloying, not seeking to control Eric. Just someone who wanted to help. Ruben hadn't given Eric food because Falko would punish him if he tried, but he was nice to Eric. He talked to him. He took Eric's collar off every now and then; let him eat with his hands and not his face. He made what Jane, Steen, Peter, and Falko did a little more bearable.

It was disturbing what someone would do for food after four days without.

They never broke his spirit: they just…changed it. Made it a little more animalistic, a little less human. A little more prone to violence. Eric didn't miss the irony that they had helped hone the weapon that would be their destruction. Not just once, either, but again and again because Eric was going to track what was left of his parent's gang (not his, _never_ his) down and eliminate them.

One by one if he had to.

ØØØ

"I'm coming with you."

There was no need to acknowledge Dewa, not that Eric had any desire to. His fellow Clansman's fancy shoes clicked down the hallway so loud Eric would have to be deaf not to realize he was being followed.

"Did you hear me?" Dewa demanded when Eric didn't answer him.

"Heard you. Didn't care."

"You can't really think you can take on seven people on your own."

_Two to seven isn't a whole lot better odds_, Eric didn't say. He didn't mention the obvious, that there were likely more than seven of them left.

"Are you planning on killing them?"

"Yes."

Fujishima wouldn't approve. Then again, Fujishima was lying in a hospital bed breathing through a tube because people who should be dead weren't so screw his approval.

"Good."

Eric flicked his eyes to the ceiling, not to silently complain to a god he didn't believe in (when men walked around who could summon fire to their hands and gangs roamed the back streets, keeping children chained up like animals, there couldn't be a god worth praying to) but simply to let the very observant Dewa know his presence and his sentiments really, really weren't appreciated. Being polite to Dewa wasn't something Eric was interested in, seeing as Chitose's friend (and how had Chitose managed to get along with such a peevish fellow anyhow?) had, for lack of a better term, always been a dick to him.

It would be a right joke to say Eric would have been polite otherwise, of course. Eric's M.O. was to eschew politeness in favor of looking for motives. Almost everyone had a motive, even if they didn't have an agenda. Eric couldn't find Fujishima's or Kamamoto's motives and that was very bad for his brain. Chitose was a hedonist, which was easy enough for Eric to understand so he tagged along with Chitose some days and wandered the others.

He would always come back to Homra in the end. At first, it was because Kusanagi would feed him and King wouldn't ask him any questions, but soon he found he genuinely liked Homra's Clansmen. Eric didn't quite think of himself as a Clansman yet, still couldn't believe they'd taken him in, but he knew most of them wouldn't question why he was there or try to pry too many questions out of him. Most days, he hung around the bar listening to their conversation, remembering what it was like to hear more than a handful of voices.

Most of the time Eric felt like a side character in a show where everyone else had memorized their lines and no one had remembered to give him the script. He could improv a little because he'd known a few lines once upon a time, but mostly he was lost, struggling to remember the right words, the right language. It didn't help that English wasn't even his first language.

Ruben always used to talk to him in English.

ØØØ

It was Ruben who suggested Eric play off of Homra's love of street urchins. Falko had wanted him to shadow King for a while and then try to kill him. Eric hadn't known much about Kings, but he knew this King, Suoh, was an opposite of Hikawa. Eric also knew he was getting older, and Falko was getting bored with him.

It would be a very bad thing if Falko decided he didn't want to play with Eric anymore. Eric didn't like, had never liked, the games Falko played, but Falko was kinder than Peter or Steen, and anyone was better than Jane.

Boss had said he wanted Suoh Mikoto, the Red King, taken care of. There was no reason to send Eric, the gang's Dog, to do anything. There was no reason to expect Eric, who hadn't been allowed to so much as touch a piece of broken glass in years for fear he might attack somebody like he did Sara, to be able to do anything other than relieve Hikawa of having to dispose of his body. Of course, Sara was dead now, just like most of Hikawa. Burned to a crisp by Suoh Mikoto.

"It's outgrown its usefulness," Boss had said offhandedly a week earlier. Erik had known he was being talked about, but Falko had been sitting, which meant he had to crouch at his feet and Eric was never in the mood to listen too closely after an hour or two of crouching. He'd unravel what they were saying later, if it was important.

"He's got a little longer yet," Falko had responded, ruffling Eric's dirty hair. Falko seemed to take pleasure in keeping Eric in as poor a condition as possible.

"It's an eyesore. Get rid of it."

"Just a little longer," Falko had pleaded, sounding resigned.

Boss had always had a soft spot for Falko. They were cousins; Falko a few years younger.

"A little longer," he had agreed, raising a finger. "But then you get rid of it or I will."

Eric hadn't realized the truth until long after he had left with nothing more than a knife and a handful of instructions. It had been his first step outside Hikawa in years, but he hadn't relished it or even realized he could have escaped if he wanted. No, all he had thought about was his mission.

He had thought it a mission. Ha.

Hikawa had never expected him to return, and Eric had been too much of a fool at the time to realize that. Not as much a fool as Hikawa, though. They hadn't foreseen how Ruben's idea would only make it harder for Eric to disappear if he did succeed. They hadn't foreseen Eric convincing Suoh Mikoto to turn on them or him joining Homra. The plan left too many openings for Eric to survive a first encounter or return home like a stupid pet or open his mouth and say where he had come from. The plan had been incredibly flawed.

Eric still hated Fujishima just a little for falling for it.

ØØØ

"Put this on," Dewa ordered, throwing a knit cap his way.

Eric watched it sail past and land on the ground.

"Fine, whatever. If you don't think blond hair is going to be noticed around here, that's your prerogative. But I'll tell you it is far harder to trail someone if they recognize you."

There was sense in that. Eric leaned over and scooped the cap up. It was black and looked a lot like the caps Yata wore. After flicking a mangled leaf off, Eric shoved it over his head. He tucked a couple of stray strands underneath before looking at Dewa, who, he just realized, wasn't wearing his bowler hat.

With a pained grimace, Dewa handed Eric the black hoodie he normally wore under his jacket.

"Take that thing off," he told Eric, pointing to his chest.

Eric glanced down and almost balked. Dewa wanted him to undress? Right now, in the middle of the sidewalk?

"Just do it."

Slowly, Eric unzipped his hoodie. He felt bare, exposed, even before the zipper was completely down. He rarely wore anything underneath, not seeing the need, but it wasn't the lack of clothing that bothered him so much as the company.

Not all of his scars had faded. Some never would.

"Turn around." Eric's nostrils flared. If Dewa thought he could order Eric around, he better get used to Eric doing the same to him. Tit for tat and all that.

Half-naked was more comfortable than wearing Dewa's clothes. There was the suffusion of warmth, the same vaguely disquieting feeling as sitting in a seat too soon after someone vacated it, and there was the smell. Not a bad smell but different and strong.

Dewa placed Eric's hoodie in his leather rucksack.

"Anything else?"

"That's it."

They continued on. Dewa had decided going back to the where Chitose or Fujishima had been attacked would be a waste of time. The perpetrators of the crime had already been identified: they didn't need evidence.

They needed a lead, which wasn't likely to come unless Hikawa went back for another Clansman. So they were headed deep into the city, to the place that had once been Eric's prison- and home.


	3. Chapter 3

"We're not together, just so you know."

If Eric had been the type to sigh, he would have. As it was, Eric's blank expression didn't change. For some reason, Dewa kept trying to talk to him. He hadn't gotten the hint that Eric: a) didn't care; and b) was rather focused at the moment on remembering how to get to Hikawa's old base and didn't need any distractions.

"Go left here," Dewa said, interrupting his thoughts.

"I think I know where I'm going."

"You don't. If we don't turn here, we'll have to turn back later."

Eric would have continued arguing, but Dewa had his PDA out and those things were usually trustworthy. He hadn't got the hang of them yet since he barely remembered how they worked back when he was eight and he still wasn't able to read much Japanese. Or English, truthfully, but PDAs were rarely programmed for anything but Japanese when they were made in-country. No one but Fujishima, Kusanagi, and Anna's aunt had to know Eric was functionally illiterate in all of his languages, not just one.

"Homra's fought Hikawa before, you know. It wasn't only Mikoto-san."

"And look what a wonderful job you did," Eric snapped. He was now following Dewa, a fact that scraped at his pride. Ostensibly, he should know the way back to where he'd lived for more than half of his life, even if it was mostly inside the walls rather than out.

"I'm just saying you didn't have to refuse Kusanagi-san's and Mikoto-san's help."

"Except I did and I didn't ask for yours, either."

"Why do you have to have such an attitude problem?"

"Why do _I_-"

Dewa's PDA beeped.

"This is the place," he said.

Eric glanced up…and recognized nothing. A gray building stood in front of them, the windows smashed and blackened from a long-extinguished fire. The roof had collapsed inwards some time ago. Eric had a feeling the cement walls were the only thing still standing inside.

The faint whiff of smoke reached them, confirming his thoughts. They wouldn't find anything useful here, not after so long. Whoever still lived wouldn't be foolish enough to hide out in this ghost of a place. Nothing lingers as long as the smell of smoke. The destruction of Eric's former home was breathtakingly ghastly, made more so by the knowledge that the Aura wouldn't burn on its own. Like a regular fire, it needed constant fuel. Instead of oxygen, it relied on its owner's internal power. King had far more power than Eric had ever realized.

He stepped over the ruins of a front door, his feet crunching over charred wood. It was dark inside, only a thin stream of light trickling in through the broken windows and that mostly lighting the spirals of dust brought up by their feet. A few steel I-beams still remained of the ceiling.

It would have been eerie if Eric remembered any of it. He didn't, though, and that frustrated him. He kicked at a hunk of charcoal, listened to its almost musical bounce across the floor.

He picked his way through the ruins, charcoal crunching under his feet. He trailed his fingers along the walls, the pads of his fingers catching on the rough edges of air pockets. He looked upwards at the fragments of the roof. For no reason at all, Eric's gaze trained on a second story window.

And he remembered.

Once, perhaps a year after his parents had disappeared, Sara had taken him to a new room, one with an enormous, sealed window that overlooked a busy street. Birds liked to use the asphalt to crack shells, dropping mollusks from above and feasting straight off the street. This practice attracted other small creatures less agile, who would periodically suffer run-ins with passing vehicles. Eric, left with little else to do, would watch morbidly as the birds, the perpetrators of the destruction in the first place, picked at the carcasses before they could decompose. Eventually, all that remained were cracked bones and fur. If the building were an animal, it would be bare bones and charred skin, remains so far removed from the original creature you had to stare at them in wonder, trying and failing to recreate what had once been there.

It was disconcerting, yet deeply satisfying. Nothing was salvageable in that awful, dark room where Eric had been kept or the room where Boss had held court. All of the evidence of Hikawa's darkest secret, the enslavement of a former member's child, was gone. The mental scars would always remain, but, because of Fujishima and King, the physical ones were fading away.

Dewa was staring at him. Eric realized he was smiling. Before him lay pure destruction and his face showed nothing but delight.

ØØØ

"We have a lead," Dewa said, finishing his call. According to Kusanagi, the Blue Clan had come across several suspicious men. For their own purposes, they had taken pictures.

"Do you recognize them?" Dewa asked, as though Eric would actually take the Blues' input into consideration. Like everyone else in Homra, he had crossed paths with them several times. The Clans' rivalry was less cats and dogs and more "Homra is a shady organization comprised of numerous ultraviolent teenage members with a bar as a domain, and Scepter4 is the police designed to keep them in check". Eric didn't trust the police, but he also understood why they wouldn't trust his Clan.

Dewa spat words Eric didn't hear.

"Why should we trust the Blue Clan?" Eric wasn't sure whether he meant the question to be rhetorical. Sometimes his brain went out of its way to fuck with Chitose's friend.

Dewa's expression wavered between annoyance and surprise. Did he think Eric was an idiot, too? What an ass.

"The men were following Yata," Dewa told him, the implication being- the implication being that the creepy Blue nobody in Homra could seem to call by name was involved. Eric didn't like him, thought the guy was a bit nutty, actually, but couldn't argue that the Blue didn't like other people being around Yata, certainly not hurting him. The whole thing made Eric uncomfortable, reminded him too much of his past.

Eric looked at the photo on Dewa's PDA. Harald's and Lorcan's dour faces glared back at him. Eric felt suddenly brittle inside. How many had survived King's attack? Eleven, twelve? More? And why were none of them coming after him?

The objective was him. It had to be him. First there had been Fujishima, then Chitose, now Yata. No attacks on Clansmen Eric didn't know well. No attempts on weak members, like Totsuka or Anna. Hikawa wouldn't want Suoh involved, which would happen if either of them were hurt. And yet there had been no attempt to communicate with him, Eric. Did Hikawa simply want to hurt him, make him pay for the second hit? That made sense, but at the same time it didn't make any. Figuring out which Clansmen were his friends and hurting them was a lot of effort to put out for a former Dog. But what else could Hikawa want?

Eric didn't pay attention to the rest of the conversation. His head was spinning too much from trying to understand it all.

ØØØ

"Shimizu," Dewa announced as a Clansman approached them. Eric assumed it was for his benefit, though he didn't say anything back, not feeling the need to, oh, be civil to Dewa.

Eric flicked his eyes in the newcomer's direction. He'd met Shimizu Yamato once before. Most of Homra didn't stay around the bar or even visit very much, only showing up when King or, rather, Kusanagi asked them to. Those who did were either high-ranking or had little where else to go. Shimizu was not one of the latter two, which was to say he had a life and could function without spending more than a day or two every few months around his King. A short man, he liked to wear a vest and tie and kept his cap tilted to the side as a sort of fashion statement. He could almost always be found with Hiraide Kazuya and Mikimoto Daiki, when Mikimoto wasn't glued to Yamada Asahi's side. Eric knew all of this because he listened when Kusanagi, who knew anything and everything about the shadier side of Shizume City, talked.

Eric didn't have an opinion one way or the other about Shimizu, which was likely for the best. For the last two days, Dewa had been drawing serrated edges across Eric's already raw temper; now there was someone who could distract him so Eric could get something done.

"Yo," Shimizu said, sketching a salute Eric's way. "So we gonna do this thing or not?"

ØØØ

"You tried to kill Totsuka-san once."

Eric didn't respond. Dewa, out of boredom most likely, had gone back to trying to get a rise out of him. This only proved he was either very stupid or very ignorant of Eric's past. Enough people had taunted Eric enough times that the words coming from Dewa's mouth had no effect. Only people Eric cared about could hurt him, and there were very few of those. Dewa was certainly not one of them.

He was, however, slightly curious as to why Dewa was so insistent on baiting _him_ when Bandou was a much easier target.

"Only Fujishima stopped you," Dewa continued. Eric stared straight ahead. He could listen without giving the bastard any satisfaction. "He's what keeps you in check, isn't he? He probably thinks of you like the rest of his pets. To him, you're just a little terrier likely to snap at anyone and everyone."

_You're lacking in originality_, Eric wanted to tell him, _and sense. You don't understand anything about who I am or what I was. I was proud to be a Dog. Until I got out and knew what the outside world was like, I was proud to _belong_._

"Man, shut it," Shimizu hissed. "Don't you know a damn about surveillance? It don't involve running your mouth. The hell you going on for, anyway?"

The tone of Dewa's apology to Shimizu was far nicer than anything he had ever said to Eric. Not that the discrepancy bothered him. There didn't have to be a reason for someone to hate you or want to hurt you. Some people liked to pick on the odd man out.

ØØØ

_Your mother did something very, very bad. _That was what they told him._ Your mother did something bad, she has to go away now, and she won't be coming back._

They were harsh words to tell a young child. He must have been affected at the time, but he didn't remember now. There were a lot of things he didn't remember.

He never found out what she had done or what happened to her, not that he especially cared. His memories of his mother were forever tinged by resentment over her leaving. For years after she disappeared, he had waited for her. He waited but she never returned, and, eventually, he stopped waiting.

In those years, he had dreamed of someone coming to save him. Not his father, because Boss had punished him for what he had done when Eric's mother went away, but someone from the outside, one of those non-yakuza people with dark hair and dark eyes who looked away when they walked past the building. He used to watch them out his window, back when he had a window.

He didn't know what his mother had done, and he didn't care. There was a connection to how he was kept and what she had done, but no one ever answered his questions or spoke her name. For five years, he didn't even remember it, until Kusanagi and Fujishima found it for him again.

They tried for years to break his spirit, never understanding that, to break someone, they had to give up everything they had first. Eric kept parts of himself secreted away. He had dreams that had nothing to do with hope or reality that let him depart the real world for a while, just a little while. His world was bleak and miserable, but he could always escape to that place in his head.

That place had kept him sane when he was with Hikawa. It had nearly destroyed him once he was out.

The first thing he realized was he didn't know how to do anything. A pet doesn't need to know anything other than how to please its owner, and Eric hadn't been much good at that, either. He could barely read, barely write, his Japanese was subpar and half yakuza slang, and he had no manners. He had no money, no home, and no friends other than an orange-haired teenager who liked taking in stray animals.

It was not a good combination.

He could be bitter over all the things Hikawa stole from him. Or he could finally exact his revenge.


	4. Chapter 4

"-last seen in Ousaki. We're looking for three men, Caucasian, above average height, with blond or brown hair. You should be receiving the pictures now-"

Dewa listened patiently to Kusanagi, who spoke in the fast-paced clip he used when passing along information, the one that brooked no interruption. Dewa moved a hand to adjust his hat. Remembering that it wasn't there, he let his arm drop.

"Mikoto doesn't remember how many he left alive-" here Kusanagi's voice became pointed and accusatory. Dewa imagined Kusanagi cutting his eyes at their sheepish King, "-so tread carefully. And try to get along with Eric." With that platitude, Kusanagi disconnected.

The end call button squeaked a protest when Dewa shoved his thumb into it. Needless to say, his day was not going well.

It had started with a quarrel with Chitose, who had promised to meet him the day before for lunch but had flaked again. He didn't even send a text saying he couldn't come. Chitose claimed he had forgotten, which _fine_. But then Chitose tried to make it up to him by asking him along to a perverted theme restaurant and Dewa had flatly told him no, he didn't want to watch Chitose look up skirts for an hour while eating subpar food. The argument had proceeded from there.

This would have been a normal day for the two of them, that is, Chitose screwing up, Dewa getting irritated, bickering that they would soon forget, if not for Hikawa. They attacked Chitose as he was talking to one of the waitresses outside the restaurant. Chitose, Dewa bitterly thought, had remembered to call _him_ before emergency services but it was too late. Hikawa had vanished.

Even worse, Eric was the last person to arrive at the hospital. Dewa doubted the foreigner had been involved in the actual attack, but he knew for a fact Eric was responsible.

Dewa was positive Mikoto had made a terrible mistake in letting Eric join Homra. What place did the would-be assassin son of enemy gang members have in the Red Clan? None, that was what. One day, Dewa had told Chitose several times, that guy would make them all regret letting him in.

And he'd been right, hadn't he? Chitose and Eric's little protector had gotten hurt simply because they had spent time with him.

"We have a lead," Dewa said. "A Blue reported an altercation with several suspected Hikawa gang members half an hour ago. The men were not brought into custody, but he interrogated them and took several pictures before sending them on their way. Kusanagi-san sent these pictures to me." He showed Eric the PDA. "Do you recognize them?"

Not even bothering to glance at the screen, Eric gave him a disgruntled look. Dewa exhaled sharply through his nose. The kid was a pain.

"I know your life used to be crap and you never learned how, but _try_ to use your words."

Eric sneered. "Why should we trust the Blue Clan?"

Alright, so that question wasn't half bad. It was, however, annoying that Eric was the one to point it out.

"The men were following Yata." Dewa let Eric fill in the rest. Kusanagi hadn't mentioned who exactly had sent in the report, but Dewa had been around long enough to know that tensions with the Blues were entirely on a Clan and not a personal level. The higher-ups in Scepter4 had an unusual relationship with a few, choice members of Homra that occasionally came in useful. If Eric couldn't figure that out, he didn't deserve to be a member of the Red Clan.

His arm started to protest being held out for so long. Dewa was about to drop it and commence mentally cursing the irritable blond to whatever hell unusually difficult people were designated to when Eric said, "I know them".

"You do?"

"It's different people from Chitose's picture-" Dewa wanted so badly to correct Eric's grammar- "so seven are involved."

"Plus the four that attacked Fujishima. That makes eleven."

They glared at each other.

"In that case, we need help," Dewa said finally.

"I don't have a phone."

Helpful. Always so helpful.

Dewa punched in Kusanagi's number.

ØØØ

Shimizu was strange, with a smile that was just a bit unnerving. However, he had a way of finding out information before anyone else and he was one of the few people Hiraide would talk to. Hiraide was the real genius, capable of accessing classified information with nothing more than five minutes and a computer.

With Shimizu's help, they tracked down six of the eleven men (Eric had mentioned that teamwork was spotty in Hikawa and would last for exactly as long as it took to get a job done) in the northeastern part of the city. The Blues had not offered their help past a lead, though Kusanagi kept in regular contact with Dewa and Shimizu.

"Other Clansmen are at your disposal," Kusanagi had said, "but anyone that knows Eric well is off-limits, including Kamamoto and Yata. Mikoto isn't taking any chances."

Yata was likely chomping at the bit about that. He was too reckless for this, in any case.

It was no small task trailing a small group in a city of millions. They moved from hideout to hideout, wherever Eric or Dewa recalled one. It made for tedious work and plenty of false positives. Eric's memory was spotty, when he had one of the places they visited. Dewa struggled to remember things he had needed to know for three weeks and a day two years ago, finding again and again that there were holes or things he had overlooked.

Finally, they found four of them in a ramshackle apartment complex in one of the shadier parts of town.

Eric seemed very surprised that Dewa had no problems breaking into a building to keep an eye on their target. It was under renovation, the air hung with the smell of cement and drying paint, the sort of place no one paid much attention to.

"I'll take first watch," Shimizu said. "Dewa's got second and Soult third."

Accepting Shimizu's decision, for all that he had been given the worst deal, Dewa merely lay down and tucked one arm under his head.

He was asleep in seconds.

ØØØ

Moments later, it felt, he was shaken awake into darkness. It would have taken nothing to turn back over. Doing so was out of the question. He sat up with a sigh and widened his eyes, forcing them to adjust.

Shimizu handed him a pair of binoculars Dewa hadn't seen him carrying (and what was that shrewdly concealed under his left arm?) before turning in.

He might as well have kept them. There was nothing to see. Hikawa's members were drinking in a sad amalgam of festivities and wanton alcoholism. No attention or concern was leveled at the Clansmen watching from across the street.

Pulling his PDA just far enough out of his pocket to see the screen, Dewa tapped the device. The backlight flared to life, emitting a garish glow even through the fabric of his jacket. No messages. With a soft tisk of disappointment, he turned the screen off.

You would think a guy would at least let his friend know he was awake. Chitose could be inordinately chatty on occasion; other times, he wouldn't get back to you for hours because he was intent on seducing someone and seduction, according to Chitose, did not involve looking at your phone every five minutes.

Likely, Chitose was surrounded by a flock of cooing girls gushing over his injuries and how brave and strong he was because getting hospitalized was absolutely a sign of strength.

Dewa wasn't jealous of the attention Chitose got. Some of the girls Chitose went out with made him indescribably nervous and others were complete morons. It was simply irritating to have at least one conversation a day be interrupted by Chitose trying to flirt his way under a girl's skirt.

The intelligent thing to do would be to not spend undue amounts of time with Chitose. Their friendship, however, wasn't built on Dewa being particularly intelligent.

Sometimes, you felt a pull to someone and no logic could explain it. It wasn't like Yata with Mikoto-san- Dewa didn't admire Chitose and he certainly didn't want to _be_ him- but it was there, causing him to gravitate to Chitose's side for no reason. For years, he hadn't understood it and had refused to probe deeper into the pull because maybe, just maybe there was something lying under the layer of irritation he had built up that could explain it all.

Then _she_ ended it with Chitose, turning him into a broken mess that wouldn't heal. Chitose couldn't handle anything more than a one night stand, could barely be around a woman without flirting or lashing out, and Dewa was the only friend he still had who hadn't gotten sick of his bullshit and left.

Need pulled them together, both desperate to end the pain that pursued Chitose so doggedly. Dewa wasn't in love with Chitose then- that wouldn't come until later- but he was mesmerized by the way their bodies moved together, by the harsh sounds that Chitose breathed into his skin, by the pleasure he saw written across his friend's face. It had been so long since Chitose had been happy.

Dewa's hands tightened around the binoculars' cheap plastic. Funny how your expectations of another person's wants could be so completely wrong.

_Chitose's arm is slung around his shoulders. They're laughing hard from a few drinks and a few jokes, the loudest sound to be heard in the still evening. The air is humid and warm over the river, the wind weak enough that he doesn't have to hold onto his hat, though he might lose it anyway given how he and Chitose are tilt-a-whirling. _

_A laugh burbles up from Chitose's chest and he stumbles into Dewa, pressing his back against the pleasantly cool balustrade. It surprises Dewa, makes his eyes widen just a bit and his lips part slightly. Chitose's teeth flash in that irresistible smile of his, the one that makes all the young ladies blush. Chitose's far too inebriated for it to be calculated. That smile is as natural to him as his auburn hair and just as extraordinary, all the more attractive because it is real. Chitose presses his face into the crook of Dewa's shoulder and hums contentedly._

_ "I think I might be in love with you," Chitose whispers too loudly._

_A long moment passes before Dewa answers._

_"I know." _

He had known for a long time. Chitose's friends now wouldn't recognize the person he used to be, so serious and devoted in his relationships. After that girl, he had done all he could to erase that part of his personality. Personalities can't just be erased, though. There was still that serious, devoted Chitose deep down. Why he had latched onto Dewa when there were so many other, better options was something the latter could never understand.

All Dewa knew was that it would never work. What he wanted and who Chitose was now could never mesh into a healthy whole. He had thought, if they left the thing between them the way it was, they could weather through it without either of them getting hurt.

In hindsight, that had been a horrible decision.

They couldn't stay away from each other. It wasn't some manic, crazed, teenage passion (not that Dewa had ever felt that), but there was a desperation to it all the same. Chitose still went with scores of women and girls and Dewa didn't expect him not to, but he would come back to Dewa like a moth to an accursed flame. They pretended they had never been anything but friends. That didn't work. They gave friends with benefits a try: it only made their lives harder. Dewa didn't know what they were now. Something murky and inscrutable just the wrong side of comprehensible.

It pained Dewa, sometimes, knowing that they could never go back to what they once were. They had crossed a line that couldn't be recrossed. Chitose hadn't left his side, but Dewa missed him terribly, missed how he used to be. Something they had was gone, and Dewa suspected it was on his end. He had made a critical mistake somewhere along the way-

_"Can't you stay a little longer?" Chitose's voice is soft and inviting. Pillow marks dig ridges into the side of his face. His sleep-mussed hair could easily adorn the crown of a model. Dewa wants so badly to stay. _

_What is he thinking? Chitose will be in someone else's bed tomorrow night. _

_Dewa leaves without answering_.

-and now, his utmost desire was to protect Chitose from further harm. He couldn't be there for him the way Chitose wanted, couldn't stand at his side as anything more than a friend, couldn't stop hurting Chitose on the inside, but he could keep him safe. Chitose was foolish. He was violent, fiery, prone to picking fights, and, most of all, impulsively reckless. It was what attracted people to him and also what made Dewa worry about finding him lying half-dead in an alley somewhere. Shizume City brimmed with people ready for a fight, and the Red Aura could be overpowered by enough combatants. Had been overpowered by enough combatants.

Once again, Dewa hadn't been there, and his most precious person had gotten hurt.

Dewa was used to being the calm to Chitose's fire, though he was as likely to be affected by it as anyone else. Chitose didn't even notice how affectionate he could be at times, and it tried Dewa's nerves. Always there and yet always just out of reach, always disappearing to be with someone else and yet always at Dewa's side, always so very _alive_.

And Dewa was just…himself. Nothing too special, certainly nothing unique. Simply a guy who knew how to get information when you needed it, whose hat created more recognition than his face. Just another nobody who knew somebody who could get you what you wanted. For a price. Everything had a price.

In truth, he hated who he was, but he knew he was useful and that was enough to convince him that he didn't need to change. If you were needed, you didn't have to be liked. If you could provide a necessary service to someone, you didn't have to care that your personality was drab and uninteresting or that your King likely didn't remember your name. You could stew in your self-hatred and nobody would bother you about it because you were useful.

_"You think you're so good at hiding things. You lie to me all the time, Dewa! You think I don't pay enough attention to notice. I do. You can tell me you don't, but I know you love me, too."_

_"I…"_

_Chitose kisses him, and Dewa lets him._

_That night, he warms Chitose's bed. The next morning, he leaves it cold. He tells himself it doesn't matter. Chitose won't care; they're just fooling around._

_ He can't even stop lying to himself._

There were good, solid reasons for Dewa to hate himself. He wasn't a good person. People like him made their own kind of morality as slippery as it was gray, with loopholes only its maker could understand. He gave loyalty to his King, to his Clan's executives, to a few members of his family, and to a very select group of others. What he held for Chitose wasn't loyalty but something far more amorphic, tenuous, and substantial, and difficult to name. He looked after Anna-chan because no child deserved to be hurt. But he didn't look after Eric.

And he never would.

ØØØ

_Beep-beep! Beep-beep! Beep-beep!_

Dewa grimaced and sat up, rubbing his forehead. He grabbed for his PDA. With a tap, the annoying sound and the flashing, red light ceased.

"Good morning, Kusanagi-san," Dewa said with a politeness- and awareness- he did not feel.

"Actually, it's Tatara. Kusanagi-kun can't come to the phone right now. Well, it's his phone and, uh, he was planning to call you but-" Yata's distinct voice raged in the background. "Something happened."

"What sort of something?"

"We got a present. The Blues- that is, one particular Blue- wasn't too happy with their subordinate letting those gang members go. He went after them, trussed them up, and brought them to the bar." Dewa could hear Totsuka's words curving upwards as he smiled. "Yata-kun is a bit excited."

"I can hear that."

"Kusanagi-kun-" Totsuka paused. "Wants to talk to you now, it seems."

Disjointed noises bounced around the PDA's speaker as the phone changed hands.

"Dewa?" Kusanagi asked.

"I'm here."

"Totsuka told you what's going on? Good. We have some information from them already. I'm sending it to you and Shimizu now." Shimizu tapped his device and nodded grimly. "I'll send you whatever else we find."

"What are you going to do with them?"

It was a long moment before Kusanagi answered.

"Their fates are in Mikoto's hands now."

ØØØ

"Did I do something to you?" Eric snapped apropos of nothing.

"What?"

Shimizu looked up to the sky and whistled while taking a few steps away from them.

"Did I do something to offend you," Eric repeated excruciatingly slowly, as though Dewa were the one whose second language was Japanese. "Because, if I did, I don't remember it."

Dewa narrowed his eyes. There was no humor to be found in Eric's ignorance. He truly did not know why someone like Dewa might dislike and distrust him, and that only strengthened the feeling in Dewa's gut that the blond was dangerous in a way incongruous with Homra.

_You tried to kill Totsuka. You would have killed Mikoto if you could have. From the second you joined, I knew you had to be either very stupid or very dangerous, and I know now you're not the former. The only thing keeping you in check is Fujishima, and look how you repaid him! He's in the hospital. So is Chitose, not that you would care about that. You're just a fucking dog, aren't you, not a scrap of humanity in you._

Dewa didn't realize he had said all of that aloud until Eric snarled.

"I didn't ask for this," he snapped. "I didn't ask to be a Dog or to kill anyone or to be saved. You think I could have killed Totsuka?" Eric laughed bitterly. "He's too precious to the Red Clan for anyone to kill. Hikawa didn't send me out to kill King; even they're not that stupid: they sent me out to die. Did you somehow not notice that it took three men to beat up Chitose? Oh, and on that note, I'm really fucking sorry for you if your precious Chitose having another friend makes you so goddamn jealous, you fucking _child!_"

Dewa had never heard him say so many words at one time. Shimizu whistled again.

"Let it all out, why dontcha," he said, adding his unwanted opinion.

"Stay out of this," Dewa snapped.

"No can do, my friend. In case you forgot, I'm part of Homra, too." He tugged on his pants leg, flashing the flame Mark on his ankle. Dewa grit his teeth. He had forgotten. It was so easy to think Homra was simply those who made the bar their common haunt. Homra was large, scattered throughout Shizume City. "And I'ma say Soult here's got the right of it. Only Kings can kill Kings, and Soult's no King. What makes you think he would have lived past killing Totsuka-san? Anyone who tries to hurt Totsuka-san's gotta go through the King, and the King don't let nobody hurt that one."

"Do you have to talk like that? I know you're smart enough to talk better," Dewa griped in place of admitting that Shimizu's words made sense.

"First off, smart and educated ain't the same thing. Second off, you ain't my superior so I don't see why I gots to do anything for you. And third off, I don't-" here Shimizu paused dramatically- "give a shit. If I wanted, I could talk just as fancy as you or brokener'n him, but I don't care to." He grinned lazily. "If you're so stupid as to presume improper articulation or grammar makes you nescient, then you justify your own expiration."

A small smile spread slowly across Eric's face. Dewa wouldn't have minded punching both of them right then.

ØØØ

People were always surprised that Chitose and he were friends. Why would a quiet, bookish person like him want to hang around someone as wild as Chitose? There was some inherent quality to them both that made people assume Dewa was a good person and Chitose was not.

That was a lie. In this world, there was no such thing as a truly good person. _Everyone_ lied, everyone cheated, and everyone stole at some point in their life. Only a saint or a liar would claim otherwise. Dewa was certainly no saint. He couldn't remember the last day he'd been entirely truthful or the last time he had done the objectively right thing.

Perhaps that was why he felt so drawn to Chitose, who was supposed to be everything he, Dewa, was not. Chitose was supposed to be bad and Dewa good; instead, they were completely muddled, better together than apart. When they were together, Dewa felt almost…good. Redeemable. It wasn't because Chitose was so terrible that Dewa looked good; rather, Chitose _made_ him good. Without Chitose, Dewa was more sarcastic, colder, meaner.

Dewa's emotions rarely ran high. Between Eric's proximity and Chitose's and Fujishima's consignment to the hospital, though, he was nearing unhealthily high stress levels, which in turn were making him lose his normally steady control on his temper. Compared to Chitose, of course, Dewa didn't have a temper.

Everyone said that Dewa calmed Chitose. He hadn't thought Chitose might be calming to him, too.

ØØØ

Dewa would have liked to say that their first confrontation with Hikawa had been entirely up to him. He would have liked to say it was successful and that the three of them had worked together beautifully, like a well-oiled, superhuman machine. He would have really liked to say that.

Instead, they were, to put it in the vernacular, a hot, fucking mess.

Following Kusanagi's tip, they had gone to Shinagawa, eventually tracking several Hikawa members down in Yoshio. That was where everything started to fall apart. They had their men, but none of them could agree on the leader. Shimizu clearly agreed with Dewa that Eric could not be trusted to act on his own. Instead of allowing Dewa to take over, however, he insisted on doing as he wished, leaving the three of them disjointed and dooming them from the start.

"Try not to rough them up too much," Dewa told Eric when they cornered the four Hikawa members. "We need information, not bruises."

Why was Dewa not surprised that Eric ignored his advice and rushed right in? He understood that Eric was furious- he was furious, too- but they couldn't lose their heads.

A blow split Dewa's lip. Warm liquid filled his mouth. He spit, splattering bloody sputum on the asphalt. It shouldn't have mattered that they were outnumbered, not when they had the Aura and these fools hadn't a gun. Hikawa was too together, too in sync. They didn't stand a chance.

He was hit again, this time by a woman with ice blonde hair, before the heavyset man laid into him again. Dewa swore and struck blindly, sending out fire with his punches. His attackers dodged them.

Eric snarled and slammed into him, twisting away before Dewa could return the favor. He snarled back, reddish-pink flames crawling up his back. There was a glint of metal, and Dewa felt that elusive thrill-

"Quit fucking around and run!" Shimizu yelled, pushing Dewa and Eric in front of him.

Their targets were getting away.


	5. Chapter 5

There was no special connection between Eric and Chitose. Eric was certainly not trying to steal the redhead away from Dewa. For one, he didn't really want to. Chitose's constant drama, while entertaining, could be wearying and Eric was more content to watch than take an active part.

It was simply a combination of Chitose's willingness to befriend (read: hit on) anyone new and his very basic life desires. Chitose wanted sex, friendship, fun, and justice, probably in that order. He liked good food and pretty people. He had a steady concept of right and wrong. He didn't like Bandou's attitude, but he was more than happy to hang out with the guy. He teased Yata about his virginity and general inability to function around girls but never about things that really mattered to the shrimp. He was predictable from his actions to his motives. Ultimately, he was good.

The only incomprehensible thing about him was Dewa. Dewa shared none of Chitose's good attributes and barely any of the bad, yet hardly a day went by where they couldn't be seen at each other's sides. Eric couldn't understand it, any more than he could understand why Shouhei insisted on accompanying Bandou everywhere or Kusanagi's and Anna's strange, mostly silent companionship.

But he liked Chitose, even if it meant having to put up with Dewa.

ØØØ

A shock of lanky, white blonde hair framed a severe face with thin eyebrows and a port-wine stain around and above the right eye. Memories blossomed through the back of Eric's brain, memories of pain and fear, and that birthmark.

Jane. Of _course_, Jane had survived.

She ran. They followed.


	6. Chapter 6

It had been Dewa's task to scout Hikawa. The gang's yakuza ties had made it a concern; its human-trafficking leanings a liability. Others would link it to organized crime: Kusanagi wanted him to find out everything they needed to know to crush it.

Everyone made mistakes.

Dewa had gotten into a fight with his parents earlier that week. They had called to nag him again about not being in a relationship ("_When are we going to get grandkids, Masa?!"_), about not having a "real" job ("_I have other responsibilities! I can't work a regular job."_), and about rumors that he was in a gang ("_It isn't a gang, Mother."_). Frustrated anger and guilt tore through his mind. Almost immediately after hanging up on his mother, he'd lost control of the Aura and inadvertently announced his Red Clan membership to a whole city block.

It hadn't been the opportune time for an assignment.

He accepted it anyway, not telling anyone that the fight was merely the latest in a series of arguments that had been raging since his last birthday ("_We're not getting any younger, Masa! How can your hooligan friend have so many girlfriends and you have none?!_"), least of all Chitose. He went out in nondescript, dull clothes, leaving his bowler hat and his good shoes at home, and listened to what people had to say about the gang called Hikawa.

After three weeks, he thought he knew Hikawa in and out. The internal structure, the main haunts, all those funny names.

There had been a young boy there once. Dewa found records of his birth, nothing about his death. The boy might have been sent to relatives or he might still be alive, living somewhere in the bowels of one of Hikawa's warehouses. No one knew for sure. A child couldn't be held responsible for an adult's crimes, and yet…. Dewa had been asked to find a way to crush Hikawa. You spare one person, you have to justify it. When you start justifying things, you have to acknowledge mitigating circumstances. There are always mitigating circumstances.

If he were still there, the child was almost certainly a spoiled brat considered inculpable of his parent's crimes. He had likely been adopted by the gang and would grow up surrounded by their poison, becoming just like them by the time he left adolescence. Children were impressionable.

The boy's mother had been Rikke Soult, Hikawa's second-in-command until she wanted out for herself and her family. There had been a promise of protection from the police in exchange for names. Hikawa's boss had found out. The police, needless to say, hadn't been able to protect her, if they had ever meant to.

A purge in Hikawa's ranks followed. It took Rikke's husband and several gang members close to her. No one on the outside knew or cared what had happened to her son.

Dewa's mother called again the day before they were to go in. Latching on to the idea that "that boy you always hang around, the one with red hair" was the source of his "delinquent behavior", she harangued him until Dewa had become cold and bitter, and numb.

One boy. One small, foreign boy belonging to the type of gang that made his life so wretched. Dewa hadn't even known whether Mikoto planned on killing anyone. And, if he did, what was one innocent among dozens of guilty? Dewa pushed the thought away and never mentioned the former second-in-command's son to anyone. Maybe the boy, if he were even there, would survive.

Everyone made mistakes.

Sometimes, you neglect one, little detail and no one is wary of the blond kid who looks suspiciously like an enemy gang's long-dead second-in-command. You overlook one detail, you nearly get someone killed, and you're not even there to stop it.

Everyone made mistakes.

Only Dewa's were so much worse than everyone else's.

ØØØ

The woman, the blonde one with the thick makeup, smiled a smile too sharp to be completely human. She stood there with her hands positioned on her hips, flanked by the three men, just waiting for them. After half an hour of pursuit, there was no doubt they were being toyed with.

Dewa gritted his teeth. He could take Chitose being hurt as revenge but as some sort of bait in a sick game? Fuck her.

"Eric," she said, pronouncing the name crisply. Her smile broadened, an awful gash across her painted face. Words spilled from her mouth in a language Dewa neither understood nor recognized. One of the men tried to interrupt. She held up a hand to stop him and continued on.

Eric's response was incomprehensible.

Dewa looked to Shimizu. Nothing. Shimizu didn't understand the conversation, either. That had to be deliberate. Dewa's eyes narrowed. If Eric was double-crossing them…

Dewa grabbed Eric's arm.

"That wasn't English," he hissed.

Eric looked at him strangely.

"No," he agreed. "It wasn't."

Then he pulled away from Dewa's grip. He didn't say a word about the conversation, didn't even try to explain what had just happened. What if this was all just a ploy and Dewa and Shimizu were being taken for fools? Why else would these four have waited for them?

"What do they want?" Shimizu asked.

Eric shook his head.

"I don't know," he said. "She didn't say."

Liar. They had to have talked about _something_. Dewa was about to say as much when the woman turned her head. He swore softly. The makeup had deflected attention from the mark under her eye. If he had been paying more attention…. It didn't matter. There was no way Eric was double-crossing them, not with this bitch. Not after the things she had almost certainly done to him.

Christiane "Jane" Fischer, Hikawa's go-to woman for all manner of cruelty, smiled that selachimorphine smile and, with a gesture, set her men loose.

ØØØ

Eric's way of fighting was predicated on a prison-yard rush and whatever he came up with on the fly. It was fast, simple, instinctive, and largely unpredictable. In short, it was effective. It also made Dewa incredibly uneasy.

Dewa didn't like knives. Likely, it was mostly a residual prejudice, but there was also something…sinister about using short blades. Once or twice, he had seen knives used almost beautifully, but those instances had involved far more throwing and far less of the vicious slicing and stabbing Eric favored.

Slippery though he was, Eric was being steadily backed into a corner. He squirted through the tiniest of holes, only for the thugs to converge on him again. Dewa couldn't see their objective, but he could guess what they would do to a skinny kid who'd almost destroyed their gang and it wasn't pretty.

Inexplicably, the Hikawa members ignored him, instead focusing their attacks on Eric and Shimizu, more the former than the latter. Aura seeped from Dewa's body at the humiliation. Still, they overlooked him and reconverged on Eric.

Dewa couldn't refocus their attention, but he could even the odds for a bit.

Kamamoto had taught him this trick after Yubikiri Maria had tried to kill Chitose. An Aura shield, not for yourself but to throw up around someone else. It had never come in useful for him, Kamamoto had said, since Yata hardly needed it and would take offense in any case. But he liked to have it, he had added with a smile that was far too knowing, just in case.

Dewa hadn't thought the first time he used it it would be to protect Eric, of all people.

Red flames spread from his fingertips, falling atop Eric like a blanket. It clung tightly to the blonde's form but didn't burn. It wouldn't unless Dewa told it to. That was the real genius of the shield. Eric had full movement, the shield acting as a second skin that would blister anyone who tried to touch it. None but Dewa and possibly Totsuka could get past it unharmed. Other Aura shields existed, but had little use outside of defensively purposes and were, therefore, insulting to the person they protected. This protected both person and pride.

Eric took none of this into account, barely glancing at the pinkish-red coating his arms before feinting left to avoid the machete that would have cleaved his face in two.

If there was one thing Dewa expected to see in that moment but didn't, it was fear. Eric, who was terrified of thunderstorms and loud sounds, wasn't the least bit afraid when it was his life in jeopardy. If anything, he was excited.

That was a very Homra emotion, and it made Dewa uneasy.

Not the emotion itself, of course. That he had seen innumerable times on the faces of his Clansmen. No, it was the appearance of it in the visage of this particular person that bothered him.

What did Dewa know about what made a Red Clansman?

Salmon-colored Aura, paler than Dewa's own, burst from the hand Eric thrust into the blonde woman's exposed décolletage. She shrieked and stumbled backwards.

Eric had passed the King's test. Who was Dewa to question his King's judgment?

The King had made mistakes before.

Or had he? Who was it again who'd brought in the Hikawa goons? Right. That guy.

Dewa swore and launched himself at the enemy.


	7. Chapter 7

From the corner of his eye, Eric saw flames. In seconds, they spread to cover his entire body, hovering hotly above his skin and turning his vision red. Innately, he knew the flames weren't his own, they were Dewa's, and yet, he felt no fear. The Red Aura could still burn him. Red Clansmen weren't immune. Some part of that Aura lived in him, too.

So he ignored it and lunged at Jane.

_You don't know me, but I know you._ How many times had Eric watched Jane scuffle with Sara or Nikola or Lorcan for Boss's pleasure? He knew how she fought, how she moved. Jane, though? Because she had only ever seen him as a dog, Jane knew nothing about him.

That was to his advantage now.

Eric refused to be calculated or predictable. He just swung and slashed, doing his best to inflict pain and cause confusion. He tripped Harald with a well-placed foot. The heavy man, made slow by an old leg injury, went down hard. He lay on the ground, clutching his knee to his chest. Eric kicked him.

Soon, fire filled his lungs. He had to stop, catch his breath. He just needed a minute. Couldn't they focus on someone else for a second?

Lorcan smiled nastily, holding his knife bare centimeters from Eric's face, forcing him back out of instinct. Eric moved to run. To one side stood Harald; to the other, a brick wall. A chain link fence jangled at his back with little give.

Dewa's Aura creation kept them away at first, till they realized cornering Eric wasn't going to get rid of it. Hikawa had always been terrible at strategizing. Flames leaked from Eric's skin, superheating the air in visible waves. Sweat beaded on the men's foreheads and became rivulets that poured downwards. Dark V-shaped patches appeared on the front of their shirts.

Eric couldn't see it, but, in that moment, his eyes glimmered. With the dual Auras and the wavering air, he looked like a demon.

Harald backed off. Eric expected him to go after Shimizu, except Shimizu was gone.

And Dewa was probably the least intimidating person in existence.

Harald and Jane converged on him. Harald cracked his freakishly large knuckles, his lips spreading into a garish leer.

To his credit, Dewa, despite being at least ten centimeters shorter and twenty kilos lighter than either man, didn't release the bastard creation hovering above Eric's skin. It stayed, a pinkish-red warning of imminent pain to anyone foolish enough to graze against it. Jane was momentarily distracted by the flames surrounding Dewa's clenched fists, and Eric took the opportunity to swipe at her, slicing a shallow cut under her birthmark.

She shrieked in pain, clutching her eye as she stumbled backwards.

"Worthless scum! We should just leave you to your pitiful existence!"

"Do it," Eric returned easily. If there was one thing he excelled at, it was talking back.

Eric adjusted his grip on his knife. Jane, blood sluicing down her face, paced before him, as though waiting for something. In that moment, Eric couldn't wish more for Shimizu's reappearance.

A clang of metal resounded through the alleyway. More worryingly, Dewa's Aura dissipated. Startled, Eric flicked his eyes to Jane's triumphant face.

"Not an option," Jane hissed before tossing a rice sack over his head.


	8. Chapter 8

The fighting could wait. The shadowy figure in lace watching from the rooftops could not.

He climbed the closest fire escape as silently as possible before coming to stand beside her.

"I'm not one to tell a lady how to do her job, but ain't this a little below your usual pay grade?" Shimizu asked the woman quietly.

"A favor," Yubikiri Maria said, "for a friend."

No need to guess which friend that was. The story of Chitose's run in with the deadly assassin had circled through Homra's ranks like wildfire. Not out of concern for Chitose. No, they all just needed the laugh and the reminder that there were people out there that were still dangerous, even to them.

"How many people do you think it takes to abduct one teenage boy?" she asked.

"Not that many. Two, maybe three."

"Two, then," she returned cryptically. "You won't be seeing me again."

With an ominous snap, her middle and ring fingers came together. Yubikiri Maria took a running start and leaped elegantly to the next rooftop. Shimizu could see her clearly for a long ways. Well, King-san didn't bother to conceal himself. When you were that dangerous, what reason did you have to hide?

Hikawa was getting away with Eric in tow. He could follow them or wait for Dewa. So far, Dewa had done next to nothing to further the search. He needed to prove his worth.

He could start by catching up.


	9. Chapter 9

Dewa ducked and shielded instinctively as the cleaning robot came hurtling at him. Dewa cursed even before the robot hit his shield. Its metal liquefied under the Aura's extraordinarily high heat and dribbled down the outside accompanied by a mess of wires and sparks, blinding his view.

"You're too kiiiiin..."

The other cleaning robot shrieked a violent protest as it began cleaning up the remains of its fellow, finally settling on cannibalizing it. Likely, other robots would be called in to help, perhaps even the regular police for destruction of city property. Dewa needed to leave.

The molten metal stopped him. Unless he wanted to die via boiling steel, he was stuck until it had cooled.

It had never been this hot before. The steel wasn't simply melted: it was _liquefied_. Mikoto could melt glass, metal, what have you with ease, as could Kusanagi. Yata had never gotten this hot, that he knew of. Dewa certainly wasn't used to this level of heat.

Sweat beaded his forehead. Fighting was still going on around him, yet he was trapped within a cage of his own making. At these temperatures, the steel would burn through his soles immediately.

He resigned himself to waiting. The other robot berated him in shrill tones, demanding that he forfeit and unhand its companion. Dewa clamped his hands over his ears and gritted his teeth. Eventually, the robot skittered off with a mass of circuitry clenched in one claw.

When the pooled steel had stopped glowing red hot, Dewa dropped the shield and stepped out of his crouch to find that he was the only person in sight. Shimizu, Eric, the Hikawa goons- they were all gone. Panic flashed through him.

_Think, Dewa. You've been left behind before. This isn't the first time and it won't be the last. Relax. If you called Kusanagi, you could have fifty of the most volatile men in Shizume at your back, ready to descend upon Hikawa._

_You own this city. You are a Homra Clansman. That means you're never alone. Relax._

The panicked anger started to ebb away, leaving cool intellect.

_They left you. That means you're not their target. They think you're inconsequential. Idiots._

_So what now?_

_Follow them, of course._

_But they're gone. There's nothing to follow. _The filth of a megatropolis surrounded him. There was no way to tell what had been there before and what hadn't.

_There's always something to follow._

Mikoto could have followed Eric's Red. Dewa didn't have that level of skill.

Why had Kusanagi picked Shimizu of all people? Unless Dewa was seriously mistaken, he was hardly the brightest. He didn't try to blend in and his advice was mostly based on "hunches" that were uncannily on the mark. He spent far too much time playing with his handheld. Probably talking to Hiraide.

Hunches. Handheld. Hiraide. A trifecta that Dewa should have, _would_ have noticed before, if Eric hadn't been interfering with his reasoning.

Dewa pulled out his PDA. The line picked up on the third ring.

"Hiraide? I need your help."


	10. Chapter 10

"Hello, Eric."

A bolt of electricity ripped through Eric's chest at those words. He lifted his head and stared, wide-eyed, at the man who had said them.

The shaggy, brown hair had not changed, nor had the green eyes or the compact body. But the face, though unchanged physically, was of a man Eric did not know.

"You're probably wondering why you're here." Ruben chuckled. "You gave Jane quite a fight from what I hear. Always knew you were feisty."

Eric's skin prickled.

"I was so very surprised to hear you had joined up with Suoh's gang. Why? Didn't you miss us?"

Eric's hands itched for his knife. He balled them into fists, digging his nails into his palms.

"We missed you, Eric. I, especially."

Suddenly, it hurt to breathe. Ruben had missed him?

"Come back to us, Eric. Come back to me. What connection do you even have to that group? We're your family."

"Families don't chain their children up like dogs," Eric said. He had meant it to be cool and bitter, the way he truly felt. Instead, his voice came out uncertain, almost pleading.

"That was a mistake," Ruben said mildly, as though it were a minor transgression and perfectly normal. It wasn't normal. Fujishima had told him time and time again, it wasn't normal. People who care about you don't do things like that to you. "Falko has paid the price for it."

He gestured towards a man standing in the shadows, his face concealed. The man stepped forward, light falling across his scarred face.

Jane's birthmark was nothing on this. Falko had once been, not handsome, but conventionally attractive. His nose had always been a bit too large and hawkish. Now, with his lower lip permanently dragged downwards and molten ridges cut into his cheek, that beak was hardly noticeable.

"Suoh Mikoto decided to teach us a little lesson," Ruben continued. "When you were unsuccessful in killing him, he came to find us. We had to move our base of operations after his visit. Falko here was lucky. Compared to some, this is but a scratch."

Eric didn't remember Ruben being so verbose or so influential. Hikawa stood enrapt, flanking his sides but for Jane who stood ready to punish Eric if he tried to resist.

"Here, we'd thought you had failed and been struck down by Suoh. Come to find out, though, he had accepted you into his gang."

ØØØ

"Eric, Eric, Eric," Ruben crooned as he circled around him. "You were always so pretty and delicate." He caressed a lock of hair that had escaped Yata's beanie. Eric wanted to shy away from his touch. His traitorous body stayed firm.

There was a touch of insanity to Ruben's smile, reminding Eric of the Blue Yata always ran into. And wouldn't it be nice to have the hotheaded midget around right about now? Anyone from Homra would be nice right about now. Eric would take _Dewa_ if it meant he weren't standing here alone with an absolute lunatic.

"I've missed you, Eric. It's been so long since I've heard your voice."

"What do you want from me?" Eric bit out.

Ruben's smile widened. It would have been comical if it weren't so terrifying.

"Why, I want _you_, Eric."

Eric's eyes widened of their own accord.

"What-"

Ruben cut him off with a low, dark, unpleasant sound Eric slowly realized was a chuckle. A long finger caressed Eric's cheek, making him shudder.

"Is it really so surprising? After all, you are very attractive. Not quite so pretty as your mother, of course, but you have your own charms. I'll tell you a secret, Eric." Ruben leaned forward, his breath tickling Eric's ear. "I think you want me, too. Don't you, Eric?"

_Stop saying my name_. _Stop saying my name. Stopsayingmyname!_

"No," Eric lied. His voice had become hoarse.

"'No'?" Ruben repeated, pulling back so that they were eye-to-eye. Ruben's were pale blue limned with black; the sort a person could get lost in. "What do you mean 'no'?"

"I don't want you."

Ruben huffed. "Of course, you do. Don't you remember who I am?" His eyes turned hard and his fist rose. Eric cringed, anticipating the blow. "I'm the one who freed you!" Ruben thundered. "If not for me, you would still be under Falko's thumb! Is that what you want?! Is it?! Because I can do that. Falko would be so glad to have you back. There's not a woman who wants to kiss that ugly mug of his now." Ruben took a breath and seemed to collect himself. His arm came down. He backed away. "Eric, baby, sweetheart. I didn't mean it. I would never give you to Falko. I didn't bring you all this way just to give you to someone else. Eric. Come on, I would never do that."

Slowly, Eric brought his hands down from his face. The pounding of his heart slowed, but something nagged at him, scratching at the back of his brain, and demanding attention. What was it? What bothered him? What couldn't he remember?

Ruben had switched back to English. To reassure him, probably, since that was the language he'd always used around Eric.

Hikawa's members had always been primarily Scandinavian immigrants and foreign residents. Japanese was spoken, but never to the higher ups, certainly never to Boss, whose grasp of it was shoddy. Out of necessity, English was sometimes used for dealing with suppliers and clients. Boss didn't speak a word of it. Ruben did, but Boss didn't.

Eric frowned. But why was that important? What had he forgotten? It had something to do with English and something to do with-

There. That was it.

"When you called me," Eric said, almost faltering before regaining his resolve, "why did you want to speak in Japanese? Anyone could have overheard me." _Someone did overhear me._

Ruben appeared to think that over. He scratched his cleft chin before grinning. He must have thought it was reassuring. It wasn't.

"That's a strange thing to remember, don't you think?"

"No."

"You know, Eric, I'm not sure I remember doing that. Maybe you have it wrong."

Eric didn't have it wrong. Fujishima was nearly failing English. He had overheard Eric. He had known Totsuka was Eric's target. Because Eric was speaking Japanese.

"You're lying," Eric said.

Ruben tutted. "Don't be rude, Eric. I might be mistaken. I would never lie to you."

"You're lying," he said again.

"Fine," Ruben huffed. "You want to know the truth?"

Eric didn't nod, didn't do anything. He locked eyes with Ruben and kept them there. He wasn't going to back down. Ruben was lying to him, and he wanted to know why.

"There was no way you were going to survive. At least, no way if you had done as you were told. I gave you a way out, but you didn't take it. I thought you would have been smart enough to run and not come back.

"Oh, I know you had no money and only a knife and a phone, but you could have gone to somebody; gotten help. If you had kept quiet about where you came from, the government would have taken care of you.

"Instead, you actually went through with it.

"You went to Bar Homra and you met Suoh. He knew your face, and he nearly killed you. My father didn't want you back anyhow. He told me to take care of you for good."

"Your father?" Eric asked.

"The Boss," Ruben replied, an odd look in his eyes. It was equal parts disgust and long-suffering. "Surely, you knew that, didn't you? How else could I have become the next boss of Hikawa?

"Anyway, he was the Boss and I was just his brat. I had to do what he said or risk losing favor. I didn't want to lose you, but-" Ruben shrugged. "You were already lost to us. I thought I'd cut things short for you."

"You were trying to kill me," Eric finished dully.

"Don't say it like that, Eric. We were all under orders to not let you come back. After what your mother did, it was shocking the Boss kept you around for so long. If it hadn't been for Falko, it's likely you'd have been dead ages ago.

"But. I never wanted that. And now I want you to come back home." He spread his arms wide and smiled, showing too many teeth. "Don't you want that, Eric?"

Eric wanted to turn and run far, far away from this facsimile of the man he had once trusted. Fear locked his legs in place, though. He couldn't move or speak, only stare at Ruben with eyes made wide with fear.

"I don't suppose Suoh would miss you too much. After all, your blood is in Hikawa. We could call him and you could tell him yourself that you want to leave his pitiful Clan. After all, you have everything you could want here."

"There's a Mark," Eric heard himself saying, "on my shoulder, like a brand. He put it there."

Ruben tutted. "That won't do. We'll just have to cover it up, then. No matter. I had a collar specially made, so everyone will know you're mine. We can put it on you now, if you'd like." From a pocket, he produced a black leather collar. Dangling from the center was a silver tag with his name inscribed on it in block letters. Eric felt sick. More than that, he felt afraid.

Ruben was going to chain him up again. He was going to be stuck here, with Hikawa, and there would be no Fujishima to save him, no Totsuka who could overlook a serious attack, no Mikoto to avenge him. He was just going to disappear again, into a room where there was never enough light and never any love. There would be no escape because the person who had let him out before was the one who wanted to keep him contained now.

How could he have been so wrong? Ruben Vestergaard was _nothing_ like Fujishima Kousuke. Ruben wanted to take his freedom away.

Fujishima wanted to give it back.

ØØØ

The first few weeks after Eric joined Homra had been especially hard. In the Red Clan, the levels of authority were twisting, turning, and yet never changing. Kusanagi was in charge of the bar (food and shelter), King was in charge of big things but would back down if Kusanagi objected, Totsuka didn't seem to be in charge of anything (Eric didn't know it, but he had been generally ruled a special case who was _not_ going to be allowed time alone with Totsuka for a very long time), Kamamoto was pretty low on the chain of command but he provided food, too, so Eric thought he was okay, and Yata was too reckless to be in charge of anything (vanguard, please). Doll-like Anna had no authority, but she was beloved and protected, and apparently a Strain with vast potential. On top of that muddle, there were the five soldiers who hung around the bar and the dozens who didn't.

It had all been very confusing and disconcerting, even with Fujishima to help him along. Though he hadn't been too helpful in clearing things up at first, since Eric had thought he'd expected a reward and Eric only had one thing he could give him. After a series of misunderstandings that would probably look hilarious thirty years from now, if he lived so long, Fujishima made it abundantly clear he did not expect Eric to spread his legs or any other body part as payment for Fujishima being nice.

Eric had been insulted by the refusal (he'd done that kind of thing before, he knew how to do it, and he was _good_ at it), causing Fujishima to drag the blond to his house and plop a three-legged kitten in his lap, as though that would solve everything. Fujishima's earnest yet slightly sad face filled Eric with so much guilt he finally lifted a hand and began petting its soft fur.

"If I expected to get back everything I give out, I'd be sorely disappointed," Fujishima said, scratching the kitten's rump. It began to purr. "It's a good thing I'm not calculated like that."

Eric looked at him unblinkingly.

"If someone or something needs help, I give it, simple as that." Fujishima removed his hand from the kitten and bopped the top of Eric's head gently. "Maybe you'll understand someday."

ØØØ

The collar chafed more than any had ever before, the feeling made worse by the heavy weight of the padlock Ruben had slipped through the holes to keep Eric from removing it. Dull with the knowledge that there was no escape, Eric hadn't struggled as Ruben placed the collar on him or attached the leash to a steel loop imbedded in the wall at a height that forced him into an awkward crouch. His thighs barely felt the stretch. The muscle memory, he realized sullenly, hadn't left him.

It might be for the best. No one had come for him before. Who was going to come for him now? Had he really walked right back into the situation he had barely escaped?

Fujishima had promised he would never be chained up again, but Fujishima wasn't expecting Eric to be stupid enough to fall for Hikawa's- no, _Ruben's_ bait. There was nothing Fujishima could have done. Or could do. Eric was truly alone. Shimizu had disappeared, and Dewa was almost certainly not coming to find him. That would be madness. Dewa wanted him out of the way. Ruben wanted him here. Homra's Clansmen were safe for now. King would come, when he found out. There was no reason for anyone to look for Eric just yet.

He wrapped his arms around his legs and wondered how he had ever had the gall to accept Suoh's offer of freedom.

ØØØ

It took hours for anyone to come check on him. They knew he couldn't escape and that he was too stubborn to kill himself. So they left him alone.

Until now.

It wasn't who Eric had expected to come, and yet, truthfully, he couldn't say he was that surprised. He was surprised, however, at the man's actions. The visitor knelt behind Eric and unlocked his handcuffs. In complete silence, he undid the lock holding the collar together, letting it fall to the ground. Their skin touched, and Eric flinched.

"Why are you helping me?" he asked, looking the man full in the face. Eric's wrists stung and he felt a thousand pinpricks in his legs when he tried to move them, but he wasn't afraid. There had been so many years of brutality, so many horrid games, and, yet, what he felt was not anger or fear, or even burning hatred but an almost pity. A little satisfaction, even. None of his emotions seemed to be right in this place.

_At least you never lied to me. _The thought flashed unbidden through Eric's mind. _At least I always knew what your intentions were. I got out, and you stayed here through everything that followed. Now, look at you. All because of me._

A desolate smile, made twisted and horrible by his scars, tugged at Falko's lips. He didn't answer.

"Once you're out the door, take the first left, then the door at the end of the hall. Open it and you're outside."

Eric didn't want to go outside. That would undo everything he had done so far. He was exactly where he wanted to be, if not how. If he could just-

Falko must have thought his blank expression was a question. If he had been the type, Eric would have laughed bitterly. Falko had never understood him even when there had been nothing to understand.

"We're going to die today. That's why you came looking for us." Eric didn't answer the question Falko wasn't asking. "Death will come sooner this way."

Falko helped Eric to his feet, a fact that made Eric's insides clench together. If his limbs weren't so stiff… but they were and he needed the help. They hobbled towards the door.

Eric paused in the doorway. Surely, Falko didn't think helping him had made up for all those years. Nothing could make up for that.

"This doesn't change what you did to me."

A ghoulish smile played on Falko's ruined lips.

"Did I ask for redemption? Now go, before Ruben realizes you're gone."


	11. Chapter 11

Dewa stared. Eric looked smugly impressed.

He'd known Shimizu had a concealed weapon. The outline of a handgun had been just barely visible under Shimizu's left arm where it was covered by his vest. Still, Dewa hadn't expected him to pull it out or be prepared to use it.

"Like it?" Shimizu asked, grinning. "Walther P99. Completely illegal but-" he shrugged.

"This Ruben?" Shimizu asked, gesturing at a pale man with his gun. Eric nodded.

Shimizu shot the man in the face three times at point blank range. Blood splashed upon them all.

An hour ago, Dewa had imagined things turning out very differently. Eric had been kidnapped, Shimizu had been absent without leave, and Dewa had no clue as to either's whereabouts. He had contemplated giving up. Clearly, Hikawa had no interest in him. And Eric…was not his favorite person, to put it mildly.

He could have left. He should have left. Chitose was lying in a hospital bed. Hikawa presumably had what it wanted.

Unfortunately, Shimizu's disappearance had infuriated Dewa, leaving the only reasonable course enlisting Hiraide's help to find Shimizu, if only to throttle him. Hiraide had triangulated Shimizu's whereabouts, whereupon Dewa discovered that Shimizu was not completely without merit, seeing as he had tracked down Eric at Hikawa's new base of operations.

Dewa still would have happily throttled him. That would have to wait, though, as their singular goal was the destruction of Hikawa.

And so here they were, surrounded by corpses still fresh enough to bleed. The air- gore smelled. Blood, gunpowder, brain matter, and viscera- they all had their own stench when fresh.

"Should we at least burn them?" Dewa asked a little nervously. Violence did not bother him nor death, but this experience proved both new and unwelcome. Judging by Eric's and Shimizu's faces, he was the only one so bothered.

Shimizu grinned wolfishly. "Now, why would we do that? Homra wouldn't leave a body behind. 'No blood, no bone, no ash', right?"

Dewa didn't understand.

"We leave it," Shimizu clarified.

The rat-a-tat-tat of machine gun fire ripped through the air, followed by a loud whoop. Dewa, who had all but had a heart attack, stared into Eric's frightened eyes. He took a little comfort from the fact that he had merely ducked down and not curled up into a protective ball with his arms wrapped around his head like the blond had. Both of them seemed like cowards against Shimizu, though. Through it all, he had barely blinked.

"That'd be Yamada," he said. "Not too subtle, him."

"Yamada?" Eric asked.

"One of our'n." Shimizu jerked his thumb at the door. "I'ma go check on them. Two o' you might wanna stay here."

Neither of them argued.

ØØØ

"After that racket, the police are bound to arrive any minute now," Dewa felt the need to point out. Shimizu's cold-blooded killing had shaken him for a few seconds, but he was fine now. Really. "We should leave."

"Yeah, okay, just a sec," Shimizu said, turning back to the room.

"Anybody ever show you this trick?" he asked as points around the room began to glow bright red. A slight burning smell filled the air, and the points vanished into smoke. Dewa's eyebrows rose of their own accord.

"Show me," Eric demanded.

Shimizu's crooked smile appeared. He reached up under his cap and, with a grimace, yanked out a strand of his own hair.

"Y'ever notice how the Red don't burn you?" Shimizu twirled the strand, which began to glow. "It can, if you want it to. Concentrate real hard, make it real hot, and you don't got to worry 'bout nobody picking up none of your DNA." The strand turned from red to black as it burned from the bottom up. Shimizu released it just as it became colored air.

ØØØ

"They moved you to another room?" Dewa asked, smoothing the sheet near the bottom of the bed. Chitose was perched sideways on the bed, letting his legs dangle over the edge. He looked better, the bruising on his arms and neck faded to a yellowish-green. There were dark shadows under Chitose's eyes and he certainly looked like he'd gotten the shit beaten out of him, but he looked better.

"Yeah, my visitors were too loud for Fujishima to rest or something. Only, once they switched me, some of the girls kept going over there so I guess it didn't really work out." Chitose smiled at him and made a "come here" gesture.

Dewa was a step from his side when Chitose lifted an arm as if to embrace him- and socked him right in the jaw.

"Ow, what was that for?" Dewa clutched his face, making sure nothing had been broken. He better not end up with a bruise. Exactly what he needed, a bruised jaw from a guy barely able to stand on his own.

"I don't know, maybe for disappearing on me for three days and not even bothering to tell me where you went?" Chitose retorted, massaging his fist. Dewa hoped it was fractured because _ow_. He'd forgotten how much a Clansman's punch could hurt.

"I left a message."

"Yeah, I got that. 'Leaving for a few days with Eric. Kusanagi-san knows where.' Real descriptive that was. You're an asshole, Masa."

"_I'm_ an asshole?" Dewa repeated in disbelief, still clutching at his face. It was definitely going to bruise.

"You didn't think I might want to come along?"

"You were unconscious!"

"So?"

"So?! So I couldn't ask you if you weren't even-"

"Hand me my cigs," Chitose demanded, cutting Dewa off. He gestured at the windowsill where his coat was neatly folded.

"Should you be smoking?" But Dewa tossed the half-empty pack to him all the same.

"I'm not the one with a punctured lung. Besides, the nurses like me too much to mind." He pulled a cigarette out with his teeth and looked at Dewa expectantly. With a thought and the touch of a finger, Dewa lit it. Chitose could have done it himself, but that wasn't the point. "How stupid can you be going after that group with just Eric? You don't even like Eric."

Dewa settled into the chair next to the bed.

"Shimizu was with us," he said.

Chitose glared at him then, so Dewa decided listening was a better idea than trying to defend himself. Let Chitose run his mouth for a while, then try to be sensible.

"I don't care what condition I'm in, next time you take me, you got it?" Dewa nodded. "They nearly killed Fujishima because, shockingly, an Aura can't protect you if the other person doesn't care about being burned. And you went in there with just Eric! Were you _trying_ to get killed?!"

"Eric can fight." Dewa didn't know why he was defending the blond all of a sudden. It was true, though. Eric could hold his own. His style wasn't in-your-face like most of Homra, but it was decent. Hikawa had been caught unawares by the way he used a knife, so he was unpredictable even to them. It had been to their benefit.

"Yeah, he can. But he isn't the type to watch your back after the way you've treated him."

"Oh, come off it. Shimizu was lecturing me about it the whole time."

"Good. You deserved it."

They lapsed into silence, Chitose taking a drag of his cigarette every now and again. Dewa watched the smoke trail up to the ceiling. Then-

"I did something, Chitose," Dewa said, unable to look his friend in the eyes. "I didn't think it was ever going to come back to me like this, but it did."

Chitose looked at him, concerned.

"You didn't get some chick pregnant, did you?"

"No, nothing like that!" The heat receded from Dewa's cheeks as quickly as it had come, and his jaw tightened again. "It's about Eric."

Chitose waited.

"I knew about him. I don't know how he got away, but he did. I didn't think he would."

"You're not making sense, Dewa."

After another abortive attempt, Dewa told him all of it, how he'd known Eric was there, his misconceptions, how he was willing to let a child die, how, if he had done something, Eric wouldn't have spent two more years being abused and wouldn't have gone after Totsuka. How, if he had done something, Chitose and Fujishima wouldn't have gotten hurt.

Chitose listened, looking at Dewa with sad, empathetic eyes, but, when Dewa finished and sat there, looking at his hands, he didn't condemn him. Chitose didn't say, "You're right- you're a terrible person". Instead, he closed his eyes, yawned hugely, and turned over.

"Nobody can be perfect a hundred percent of the time," he said. "If you feel that bad, you can make it up to me by waiting on me hand and foot until I'm back to my _gorgeous_ self again." His smile faded. His expression grew serious. "Nothing's changed, Masa. I still feel the same way about you."

"You shouldn't," Dewa sighed.

Chitose opened one baleful eye.

"But I do. Now go apologize to Eric before you forget."


	12. Chapter 12

In the doorway of the room Chitose had been forced to vacate stood Eric. Tense and exhausted, he waited with hesitation for some acknowledgement to come inside.

From the bed, Fujishima gave him a tired smile. Eric would have crumpled right then if there hadn't been someone else there.

"Eric, isn't it?" the woman asked. She had to be Fujishima's mother. They had the same orange hair and eyes, and those weren't too common a combination. Or occurrence. Seriously, what kind of weirdo genes gave you _orange_ eyes?

He stared at her. Then, more than ever, Eric wished he knew the polite thing to say. He didn't, though, and he doubted there was even etiquette for greeting the mother of your not-best friend who was in the hospital for the simple fact of being your not-best friend.

"I'll leave you two alone then," she said, patting Fujishima's leg. "You'll be alright?"

They exchanged a few, agonizingly long words before she left.

Eric stumbled into Fujishima, grabbing onto him like he might fall apart any minute. His grip was too hard but he couldn't loosen it, not when air wasn't getting into his lungs, his eyes were burning, and Fujishima was safe and warm, and nothing like Ruben who was dead, dead, dead. Eric clung to Fujishima until his hands ached and then he kept holding on.

Ruben had told him to go after Totsuka. After Eric had almost been accidentally burned to death, he had told Eric to go back and go after Totsuka. Falko would have had Eric killed outright, but Ruben had wanted him to go back. Eric had seen how they treated Totsuka. He'd seen what King could do on accident. And Ruben had told him to go back.

When Ruben was punished, it used to hurt Eric down deep inside. Everyone in Hikawa was punished at some time or another, but Eric only ever cared when it was Ruben. Sometimes, he would even act up to get Jane to punish him instead. It had hurt him a little in the heart when he realized King had probably killed Ruben along with the others. Had he really been that desperate for affection? Had there ever been any real kindness there?

Ruben had never tried to save him. He had eased Eric's pain a bit by giving him a little happiness in the midst of so much misery, but what kind of kindness was that? Eric didn't want to think about it too much, didn't want to know what answers he would find if he did.

Eric hadn't cried in a very long time. Jane had always punished him when he cried, tightening his collar or pressing hot metal into his skin. He had learned very quickly how to hold tears back. But Hikawa was gone and Jane was gone and he didn't have to follow her rules anymore, and Ruben had been as cruel as the rest of them.

If the tears had come, he would have let them fall freely, and he wouldn't have cared what anyone thought. But they didn't come. The pain was there, but the ability to release it wasn't. One more thing Hikawa had taken from him.

They couldn't take Kou- Fujishima from him. Eric's grip tightened on Fujishima's hospital gown. They had tried and they had failed, and now they would never be able to try again.

"Hey, hey. It's alright. You're alright." Fujishima's voice was low and soothing.

"You're disappointed in me, aren't you?" Eric mumbled into his shoulder.

"No," Fujishima said, pulling Eric's hood back and smoothing his flyaway hair down with his uninjured hand. "You did what you thought was right."

"I got a lot of people killed."

Fujishima sucked in a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. Before he could talk, however, Dewa burst in.

"Cut the crap, Eric. Those people deserved to die, and you know it. They abused you, then tried to kill you, then tried to kill Clansmen. They attacked the Red Clan three times. They were asking for revenge."

"Killing is wro-"

"Not always. Some people can't or won't turn their lives around. They're a cancer to everyone else, and cancer needs to be destroyed. That is what you did today, Eric, you destroyed a cancer."

Eric's eyes were wide as Dewa finished, looking embarrassed.

"Th-thank you," he said.

"You're welcome." Dewa scrubbed his hand on his pants. "I guess I was wrong about you, Eric. You're not such a bad person." After a few seconds where he was clearly uncomfortable, Dewa left.

Fujishima raised an eyebrow at Eric, who wrinkled his nose.

"Don't ask."

"I wasn't going to."

ØØØ

"How's Fujishima?" Chitose asked, sitting down with a grimace next to Eric on the floor. Dewa had stayed with him until visiting hours were over, at which point Chitose experienced a miraculous recovery that allowed him to be released from the hospital straight into Dewa's oh-so-loving care. A taxi had taken them back to the bar, where Chitose enjoyed his first drink in days. Everyone, as was to be expected, had been delighted to see him. Mikoto-san had even clapped him on the shoulder and said he was glad to see Chitose was feeling better. Chitose didn't share Yata's worship of their King, but he still glowed at the unanticipated attention.

Fujishima, who either had terrible recovery time or was much worse off than Chitose had been led to believe, was forced to spend another night under a nurse's care. The night shift wasn't _rude_ per se, but years of dealing with patients of all sorts had made them rather maternal and immune to flattery.

Eric must have been kicked out too, since he had wandered into the bar sometime around nine. He had been even more standoffish than usual, not that anyone had much tried to talk to him. Everyone knew what he and Dewa had gone off to do.

"Fine," was Eric's gruff answer.

"Fine? Really? He didn't look fine last time I saw him."

Eric glowered. A corner of Chitose's mouth turned up in a smile. Such a weird kid.

"I'm sure he's stable. I don't think they'd've let you see him if he weren't." Chitose paused, only half-waiting for an answer. He had long since gotten used to Eric's frequent unresponsiveness. Not everyone could be a conversational master like himself. "Did Dewa talk to you by any chance? That guy can be a bit of a jerk, but-" Chitose stopped. If Dewa hadn't apologized, there wasn't jack Chitose could do about it.

Eric hunched further into himself. "We talked. It's fine."

Chitose had always had a talent for getting out of unpleasant conversations, but this was one he couldn't avoid. Eric had gone and risked his life, thinking people being dickheads and their King not fully taking care of the Clan's problems was his personal fault, and Chitose owed him for that and for letting his best friend be a complete asshole for far too long besides. So he sucked in a breath and did his best to channel Totsuka.

"That was a cool thing you did," he said.

"What, killing people?"

"Nah. That's never cool." Chitose crossed his arms behind his head and looked up at the bar's immaculate ceiling. When Kusanagi got the chance to clean it was a mystery to him. Course, when it came to cleaning time, Chitose had a neat little habit of vanishing. "I meant sticking up for me and Fujishima against, well, I guess your family. That's a hard thing to do."

"They weren't my family."

"Maybe not. But at least some of them meant something to you." He waited. Dewa had told him some things, but there was a lot he didn't even know, a lot Dewa didn't have the right mindset to understand. Love wasn't logical, and it surely wasn't smart. "Who were they?"

Eric didn't answer for a long time.

"A guy," he finally said. "Ruben. He's dead now so it doesn't matter."

"It always matters," Chitose contradicted. "If the pain's still there, it matters."

Eric gave him a glance that clearly said, _I'm not the type to talk about my feelings_.

"What's it gonna hurt? Man, look, I can talk at you all day long."

"It's night."

"See! There you go," Chitose crowed, delighted at getting a response. "That's a start."

"You're weird."

"I hang around these dorks all day." Chitose stuck a thumb backwards at the bar. "What do you expect? So. Tell me about Ruben."

Eric hissed.

The story wasn't pretty. Chitose hadn't expected it to be, but his imagination had created a history very different from the one Eric had actually lived. Even what Dewa had known about Hikawa encompassed a lesser cruelty than this.

Perfidy was something Chitose understood all too well. He'd only had one truly bad relationship, which had stuck with him over the years, tainting almost every other. At twenty-one, he was still piecing together the long-separated shards of a shattered heart.

"He was an asshole," Chitose said. "People like that don't deserve to be alive."

Eric didn't look like he believed him.

"If it hadn't been you, it would have been someone else," Chitose explained, rubbing at a spot on his neck. "We can't call the police, because they're near worthless. I mean, look at you. What good did the cops ever do you? They didn't shut that gang down, that's for sure. Fucking Yata gets nearly jumped and the Blues barely take notice. Don't give me that look; you know exactly what I'm talking about. Jack fucking shit happens to Yata without _that guy_ knowing it. If the regular police cared about doing gangs in, they would've done it by now. But they didn't, so people like us have to do something."

"I let Fujishima down."

"Is that what you're worried about?" Not all of Homra's members were as comfortable with violence as others. To Chitose, violence was violence was violence. He didn't need a solid reason to bash someone's head in. It was pretty odd for Eric to say he "let Fujishima down". Fujishima could brawl with the rest of them.

Course, killing wasn't your everyday street scuffle.

Chitose scratched at his jaw. The corner of his mouth twitched at the memory of the fresh bruise on Dewa's. "You didn't. Fujishima might not like everything we do on our own, but he stands by Homra. If Kusanagi-san sent Dewa and Shimizu with you, it means the King approved of what you were doing." Eric's expression had turned cold. Chitose backpedaled. "You did Fujishima a solid. You went after the assholes who hurt him and who hurt you. They're not gonna come after you anymore."

Clearly, Chitose was no good at pretending to be Totsuka. He was starting to think he might actually be causing more damage.

"Totsuka!"

"Yes?" Man, that guy was quick.

"Eric wants to talk to you."

Ooh, Eric had a bitch face.

Thank goodness he was only throwing daggers with his eyes and not his hands because, oh, yeah, he totally _had_ _one_. There should be a no weapons in the bar rule. There wasn't, though, at least not yet, so Chitose grabbed Dewa by the arm and hurried out of the bar with the excuse that his numerous grievous injuries were hurting him fiercely and hadn't Dewa promised to wait on him like an obedient-if-rather-dry-humored manservant?

ØØØ

It was nearly midnight when Eric found himself slinking through the corridors of the hospital. Visiting hours were long over, which should have made anything but the waiting room off limits to him, if, in the year Eric had been free, he hadn't learned to play the stupid foreigner card. It was very convenient, if you didn't mind people being annoyed at you. Luckily, Eric could care much, much less what hospital or janitorial staff thought of him.

He made his way by memory since he couldn't read most of the signs. Turn left here, go down this hallway, through the double doors. It wasn't hard. The hospital smells tugged at his nose, nauseating him. How much longer would Kousuke have to stay here?

"You're not supposed to be here," he said when Eric slipped into the room. Not _you can't be here_ or _you shouldn't be here _or_ I don't want you here, go away _but_ you're not _supposed_ to be here_. Eric let a small smile cross his lips.

"No one stopped me."

Kousuke didn't invite Eric over, but his orange eyes were warm and seemed to beckon to Eric. He dragged a chair over to Kousuke's bedside and sat on it with his knees pulled up to his chest. Kousuke reached out, startling Eric, and pushed Eric's hair out of his face, tucking it behind Eric's ear.

"You're alright?" he asked Eric. "You're not hurt anywhere?"

Eric shook his head, his hair falling back over his face. Kousuke- when did he start thinking of him as Kousuke?- pushed it back again.

"Are you-" Eric ducked his head and nervously drummed his fingers on his shin- "disappointed in me?" Kousuke had said he wasn't and Chitose had said he wouldn't be, but Eric didn't believe either of them. Almost exactly a year ago, Kousuke had stopped him from killing Totsuka-san. Since that moment and even before it, he had helped Eric as much as he could, giving him food, shelter, companionship, and even happiness. Eric hadn't been able to give a single thing back. He couldn't even prove that he had changed. A year ago, there hadn't been red in his ledger.

Kousuke didn't pretend he didn't know what Eric was talking about.

"I don't like what you did," he said quietly, looking away from Eric, "but I don't think you're a bad person for doing it."

Eric wilted. Kousuke was disappointed. He just didn't want to say it.

"Why can't you just tell me to leave, huh?!" he yelled, jumping to his feet, hands balled at his sides. "Why can't you just say you failed and give up?! It's been a year, and I'm worse than I was before!"

"What are you talking about?" Kousuke asked, sounding bewildered. It only infuriated Eric more. How could Kousuke be so nice? He had a temper; Eric had seen it.

"I'm just another project to you, aren't I? I'm one of your strays, except you couldn't rehabilitate me like the others. Just give up already!"

"You're not a project, Eric." Anger tempered Kousuke's voice. Good. "You're a human being. Sue me for trying to help you. But if you're saying I failed, you better tell everyone else they failed, too. It's not just been me helping you and you know it. Are you going to tell Totsuka-san he failed? Or Kusanagi-san or Kamamoto? They've helped you as much as I have."

"That's not the same thing!"

"Of course, it's the same!" Kousuke roared, throwing his sheets back. He stood, his sudden height imposing. There was almost no difference in their heights, but Kousuke had a presence, a solidity that Eric didn't possess. "Mikoto-san wouldn't have accepted you if you weren't a good person."

"Then he made a mistake."

"No. I've gotten to know you, Eric, and you _are_ a good person."

Eric squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head violently. Good people weren't indifferent when people died. They didn't watch a bullet enter a man's skull without flinching or step over a fresh corpse like it was nothing.

"Eric."

"Eric, look at me."

Cool hands cupped Eric's face. Slowly, feeling Kousuke's breath on his face, he opened his eyes. They were centimeters apart.

"Why can't you leave me alone?" Eric asked, feeling and sounding broken. It wasn't what he wanted to say- it wasn't how he felt- but the words were already out there.

"Is that what you want?" Kousuke's eyes had turned sad, almost regretful. Eric didn't understand.

"I don't know," he answered honestly, Adam's apple bobbing. His skin felt hot, tight, itchy. He was going to vibrate right out of it if he didn't split into pieces first. "I don't know what I want. I just don't understand. If I'm not a project, why do you all do it?"

Kousuke froze, looking thunderstruck. He cleared his throat.

"I can't say why the others do it, but- I like you, Eric. You're different, in a good way. The first time I saw you," Kousuke's cheeks reddened, "you were different," he finished lamely.

"Different," Eric repeated dubiously.

"I liked your hair," Kousuke admitted. "It was long and a natural blond, and even though it was dirty, it was…different. I wanted to help you, you were so thin and you were sleeping on trash bags in the rain. I couldn't leave you there."

Eric remembered what it was like waking up in a strange place, an onslaught of Japanese and unfamiliar faces. The man he would later learn was Totsuka Tatara pointing to Kousuke with his bizarre orange hair and Union Jack T-shirt and saying, "This is the guy who found you". Anger, annoyance, and terror filling him as he realized he had messed up the plan by passing out on the roadside. Eric didn't have the least good impression of their first meeting, but Kousuke did. Then again, it wasn't every person who picked up an unconscious stranger instead of calling the police or an ambulance. How different everything would have been if Kousuke had.

"That doesn't explain why you kept helping me after I joined. You didn't have to."

"I wanted to." Kousuke sighed. "It's not all altruistic. Sometimes, I just find myself watching you. You won't be doing anything, but I can't take my eyes off you."

Eric's eyes widened.

"Wha- you said you didn't want me to repay you that way!"

"I don't!" Kousuke was quick to return. "At least, I don't want you to feel obligated. You don't owe me anything."

Eric laughed hollowly. He owed Kousuke _everything_.

"But, if you wanted to…" Kousuke scratched the back of his head with a heavily bandaged hand. Eric flinched. "I wouldn't object."

As pick-up lines went, it was no gem. Eric could care less.

Fujishima's lips were warm.


	13. Chapter 13

Rolling his head in a slow circle, Shimizu placed his cleaned gun back in its holster. He'd have to send his account of the events to Kusanagi-san in the morning.

There weren't too many perks in being the hidden face of Homra. Mikoto-san was great for theatrics, but there were some problems that needed to be taken care of more permanently. It would be better the Red Clan not to be linked to those problems once they were solved.

Tonight, he was going to go to Kazuya's place and see if he couldn't drag him away from his screens for a while, maybe go out, get a few drinks, put it all on Homra's tab. Mikimoto and Asahi were never around after a kill- they had their own way of chasing the nightmares away.

Tomorrow, Shimizu would have to talk to Kusanagi-san tomorrow about that intelligence test he'd been muttering about. Some of these guys…yeesh.


End file.
